Police officer accused of kneeling on girl's neck

KENOSHA, Wisconsin－An off-duty police officer, accused of placing his knee on the neck of a 12-year-old girl to restrain her after a school fight in Kenosha, is under investigation and remains employed, said the city's police department in a statement.

The March 4 incident at Lincoln Middle School drew fresh public attention after the city's school district, which employed Shawn Guetschow as a part-time security guard when he was off duty from the police force, publicly released a video of it on Friday.

It comes the year after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who used similar knee restraint on George Floyd as he cried "I can't breathe", was convicted of murder and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison.

Guetschow resigned from his security guard post for the Kenosha Unified School District, but remains employed by the police, stated Kenosha Police Department on Twitter.

The surveillance video showed two female students fighting in a lunch room before two adults intervened. One of the adults brought one student to the ground, placing his knee on her neck while handcuffing her.

An attorney for the girl said during a news conference last week that it "mirrored the same maneuver that Derek Chauvin used to murder George Floyd".

Guetschow "held her face against the floor, he positioned himself behind her, lifted his right leg, and pressed his knee down into the back of her neck", attorney Drew DeVinney said.

She "told him she couldn't breathe", DeVinney said, but "the officer continued to push his knee" into her neck.

According to US media, Guetschow said he resigned from his security guard role due to the "mental and emotional strain" the event has brought his family. Attempts to reach Guetschow for comment on Sunday were unsuccessful.

Kenosha has a troubled past with police using force.

In August 2020, a white Kenosha police officer shot a black man several times in the back in front of his young children, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

In June, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers signed into law a measure that bans police from the use of choke holds.

The school district and police department declined to comment on Sunday, other than to say that Guetschow resigned from the school on March 15.

Agencies Via Xinhua