Video: NYPD cop body slams teen on subway platform

Brooklyn - In a recently-posted YouTube video, a New York City transit police officer detains a teenager on a subway platform and then repeatedly and brutally slams him to the ground.

The New York Daily News reports that 19-year-old Sean Pagan was detained around 8:30 p.m. last Thursday while waiting for a train to Coney Island at the 45th Street subway station near his home in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. According to authorities, Pagan was seen writing graffiti in a restricted area of the station. He may also have jumped a turnstile. David Galarza of the community group La Casita Communal de Sunset Park just happened to be at the station and recorded Pagan's detention by a New York transit cop. The officer, later identified as badge number 23400, approaches Pagan and orders him to 'assume the position' with his legs spread and his hand raised up against the wall. The teen quickly complies. But as the officer frisks him and touches his genitals, Pagan squirms slightly, triggering a violent response. The officer slams Pagan to the ground not once, but twice-- so hard that an advertisement on the wall comes crashing down onto him. He then puts the teen in a headlock while ordering him to stop resisting. But Pagan does not appear to be resisting at all, and says so in the video. Many victims of police brutality claim that officers say "stop resisting" as a tactic to allow them to continue brutalizing, and as a defense in the case that their actions are caught on camera. As Pagan is handcuffed and led away from the platform, concerned citizens ask the officer for his name and badge number. He does not comply and says they are interfering with the work of a law enforcement officer, another common tactic used by police to prevent people from recording their misdeeds. At one point, the officer's badge falls off and the camera zooms in on badge number 23400. "We're supposed to get protected, and you're fucking slamming me on the floor?" Pagan asks incredulously as he is led away. "I was just in shock he really did that," Pagan later told the Daily News. "I'm sure there are other kids who got the same treatment or worse treatment that wasn't recorded."