Police officer suspended after being filmed beating naked woman in Detroit hospital

A Detroit police officer has since been suspended after a video emerged showing him beating a naked woman inside a hospital.

James Craig, the police chief of the Detroit Police Department, said the officer had been “immediately suspended” after the department received a video of the encounter from Detroit’s local Fox news station.

Mr Craig did not identify the officer, who has been suspended with pay, but said at a press conference he had been with the department for 18 years. The force has since launched an internal investigation into the matter.

A graphic video submitted to Fox showed an officer repeatedly punching a woman, who was not clothed, inside of Detroit Receiving Hospital. The unidentified woman who filmed the encounter reportedly told Fox the woman appeared to be mentally unstable.

“He was wrong, I know that,” she said. “And I think he needs his badge taken – he needs to be dealt with. He beat the hell out of her.”

A spokesperson for the Detroit Police Department could not confirm the status of the woman’s mental health to The Independent but said she had been taken to a crisis centre within the hospital for evaluation.

When asked during the press conference to confirm whether police officers knew the woman seen beaten in the video had a mental illness, Mr Craig did not explicitly confirm either way. He said, however, she was transported to the hospital after someone called the police about a “nude” person, which he said was a “clue” that “something’s not right”.

Mr Craig had previously noted that the department handles “roughly 500 calls a month on average [about] a person suffering from mental illness…” He added, “We generally deal with these situations very well.” But noted the widely-shared video was “very troubling.”

After Detroit police officers received the call about a woman who was not clothed but showed signs of being “passive”, they reportedly gave her a robe and transported her to Detroit Receiving Hospital. Mr Craig said the woman did not appear to be agitated in transit but expressed concerns that the responding officers did not handcuff the woman, as taught in the department’s safety trainings.

“Even though we are very early in this investigation, one of the concerns that I have is the fact that the officers did not handcuff this mentally ill person.”

Mr Craig said the woman allegedly took off her robe when she arrived to the hospital and that her demeanour “changed”. He said she was agitated and allegedly spat on hospital employees and attempted to bite the officer who has since been suspended. The chief noted that body camera footage reveals a “little bit of a different story”.

Nonetheless, Mr Craig told reporters that the department has “grave concerns” that the footage showed the officer hitting the woman after she turned her back to him. He added that a criminal investigation had been initiated. Mr Craig said the woman was stable and treated for "minor injuries" with "some evidence of contusions".