Seattle Cop Forcefully Shoves Colleague's Knee Off Protester's Neck During Arrest As Bystanders Cry Out In Viral Video

Galvanized by a Minneapolis police officer's killing of George Floyd on May 25, protests swept across the U.S. over the weekend as millions of Americans demanded greater accountability for racial bias by law enforcement and acts of police brutality.

On both Saturday and Sunday, peaceful demonstrations throughout the day transformed into chaotic scenes of violence and looting overnight.

During one especially tense moment on Saturday night, a T-Mobile in Seattle was destroyed and raided by a group of people.

While arresting an individual, one Seattle Police Officer employed an all-too familiar method of restraint: he forced his knee into the suspect's neck and held it there.

The officer that killed George Floyd did so by driving his knee into Floyd's neck and holding it there for over seven minutes.

The entire ordeal in Seattle was caught on camera by Crosscut photojournalist Matt M. McKnight, who posted the footage on both Twitter and Instagram.

The video showed that as the police officer drove his knee into the suspect's neck, multiple protesters off camera loudly demanded he remove his knee:

"Get your f***ing knee of his neck."

The other arresting officer then used his hand to force his colleague's knee off the man's neck.

But the story took an even grimmer turn when, shortly after, McKnight posted a longer version of that same footage.

The longer video captured what appeared to be a pattern. 

The same officer drove his knee into another person's neck just moments before he then ran over to restrain the victim seen in the original, shorter viral video. Twitter users were enraged when they saw the videos.

Many responses were appalled at the continued use of such a dangerous method.

For others, the tweet conveyed how avoidable Floyd's death was, just a week before.

Other tweets expressed a general feeling of hopelessness.

They felt the moment illustrated that a fundamental change to police conduct was still far away.

The weekend's protests produced multiple viral videos of high-intensity moments like this one. As unrest presses on, it's clear that smartphones will be a pivotal tool used to drive police accountability.