February 10, 2022
Black Purdue University Student Accuses Police Officer of Using ‘Excessive Force’
Cellphone footage captured a Purdue University police officer’s alleged excessive force against a Black male student.
Adonis Tuggle, a junior in Purdue’s College of Health and Human Sciences, was arrested for resisting law enforcement. But Tuggle denies the charges claiming he never tried to resist officer Jon Selke, Purdue Exponent reports.
In video footage reportedly captured by Tuggle’s girlfriend, the student can be seen struggling in the snow with Selke while the officer holds his forearm over Tuggle’s face and neck. Tuggle’s girlfriend can be heard begging Selke to take his arm off Tuggle’s neck.
“Stop,” Tuggle’s girlfriend says in the video. “Get off of him! Get off of him!”
Police were responding to a call from an eyewitness who reported a “domestic disturbance of a couple arguing during a breakup,” police spokesperson Capt. Song Kang said. Selke arrived two minutes later and said he was trying to figure out what was happening.
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“He didn’t follow instructions,” Selke said. “It was a simple resisting case.”
But, Tuggle claims he wasn’t resisting arrest, and Selke ordered him to “get away from the car.”
“I tried to explain to him, ‘Nothing’s going on,’” Tuggle said Wednesday. “‘I’m not attacking her. This is my girlfriend. We’re having an argument.’”
Tuggle says he told his girlfriend to explain their disagreement to the officer, but Selke “screamed at her, ‘Shut the f*ck up and back up!’” Tuggle said. The student says it was at that point when he got in between Selke and his girlfriend and told him, “There’s no need to be disrespectful.”
Police Chief John Cox released a statement announcing an internal investigation, WLFI reports.
“Any time a PUPD officer uses force in connection with an arrest, the department conducts an internal review,” Cox said.
“The investigation will include input from all witnesses to the arrest and take into account all available evidence, including video from officers’ body-worn cameras.”