The chaotic confrontation, between the police officers and two men, has prompted an Internal Affairs investigation about whether excessive force was used, police officials said.
The beating, the police said, came after two transit officers had an altercation with two men they had asked to leave the entrance of a nearby subway station.
The two men, Sidney Williams, 37, and Aaron Grissom, 36, were arrested on charges of felony assault and other offenses, and treated at a hospital, police officials said. Two of the officers had minor injuries.
According to police officials, several commuters had complained about the men smoking in an entrance to the A, C and 1 trains at 169th Street on Broadway.
The transit officers spent five minutes trying to persuade the men to move away from the area, and then one of the men threw a punch at one of the officers, which was not captured on the video, the officials said.
Michael Gonzalez, a bystander, said he saw the two men physically accost the officers and began filming the incident, which took place on 169th Street in Washington Heights.
Gonzalez said a taller man with dreadlocks, whom the police identified as Grissom, tried to shove or grab an officer with a shaved head.
“I don’t know what he was thinking” Gonzalez said. “What did he think, the officer was going to back away?”
In the video, the shaven-headed officer flicks open an extendible baton and strikes Williams, the shorter of the two men, twice over the head. Another officer wearing a watch cap takes a backhanded swing at Williams, striking him in the face.
A woman off-camera can be heard saying in Spanish, “They were telling them to move away from there, and they didn’t want to. The two of them squared with the police.”
The video shows Grissom chasing one of the officers down 169th Street; they grapple and fall to the ground. Other uniformed and plainclothes officers rush to join the fight, kicking and striking Grissom with fists and batons.
One baton strike appears to catch Grissom flush in the face, dazing him, the video shows. The shaven-headed officer strikes Grissom multiple times with a baton while he is pinned to the ground. One of the plainclothes officers can be seen repeatedly kicking Grissom in the torso.
Police officials confirmed that two detectives and an off-duty police officer came to the assistance of the two transit officers. The Police Department did not identify the officers involved. None have been placed on modified duty.
Grissom and Williams were arrested at least once before, on Dec. 5, in an attack on two transit officers. The officers had told them not to loiter in the mezzanine area in the same station, court records show.
In that incident, Grissom threw a punch at a transit officer, and Williams swung a wooden bat at a second officer, according to a criminal complaint. The men were charged with resisting arrest, attempted assault and possession of about two dozen bags of synthetic marijuana.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking to reporters Wednesday at an unrelated news conference at City Hall, said the video raised disturbing questions for the police.
“If people are on the ground, and yet there’s still physical action being taken, that concerns me,” he said.
Still, the mayor said, Grissom and Williams bore the blame for starting the conflict, and he noted that the police investigation into the beating was not finished.
Grissom, who lives in the Bronx, faces charges of assault, resisting arrest, menacing and other offenses, the police said. Williams, of Brooklyn, faces charges of assault, resisting arrest and aggravated harassment.
Both men were treated at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s for pain and bruising. Williams has a nose injury, police officials said.
One of the officers involved in the melee has chipped teeth and a knee injury, the police said, and another has a hand injury.
Grissom and Williams had not yet been arraigned on criminal charges, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.