Footage provided to Florida Politics through the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office shows Deputy Neil Pizzo putting his hands around the neck 17-year-old Terrence Reed at inmate intake and bringing him to the ground.
According to law enforcement, the teenager threatened the officer beforehand. A statement from the sheriff’s office made to ABC7 claims Reed told Pizzo, if they were in the streets, he would blow his head off and kill him.
Florida Politics reports Sheriff Tom Knight viewed the video and decided the deputy was out of line.
“We slowed the frames down and looked at it and I said, ‘We’ve got a problem,’” Knight said, according to the outlet. “It appears we have a violation of policy, and we relieved him of his ability to go to work.”
The sheriff tells the news outlet Pizzo is the subject of an internal investigation and hopes to have a resolution very soon.
Source: TheGrio
