Incident between Glennville officer, high school students under review

GLENNVILLE, GA (WTOC) - The city of Glennville is investigating the circumstances surrounding an officer's arrest of three juveniles caught on camera last Thursday.

An officer from the Glennville Police Department wrestled a high school student and two other juveniles to get them in handcuffs and into custody. The question is, was it excessive force or was the officer defending himself against three suspects?

The set of videos on Facebook show an argument between two high school students that leads to punches being thrown. Another video shows a police officer with one of those students pinned to the ground, trying to handcuff him. Two other juveniles are shown trying to grab the officer and stop him. The officer eventually gets the second young man pinned to the ground. Then, the young girl is seen kicking at the officer and he grabs her by the arm and pins all three of them down while waiting for backup.

The city says they are trying to determine if the officer handled the situation correctly, but they can't say much because the three students involved are underage.

"Therefore we can't release any information about them other than to say they're juveniles. The matter has been turned over to the department of juvenile justice for handling," said Hugh McCullough, City Attorney. "The officer was interfered with and that constitutes obstruction of an officer."

McCullough says they'll review the dashcam recording to see whether it captured video of the struggle or just audio from the officer's microphone.

"The city takes every matter of police officers and use of force seriously, but it didn't end with the pair of young men. The young girl is seen kicking at the officer until he grabs her and wrestles her down too," McCullough said.

Meanwhile, the city is looking into whether or not the officer's actions were justified.

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