Wisconsin police officer uses knee restraint on 12-year-old girl

An off-duty police officer accused of placing his knee on the neck of a 12-year-old girl to restrain her after a school fight in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is under investigation and remains employed, the city's police department said in a statement.

The March 4 incident at Lincoln Middle School drew fresh public attention after the city's school district, which employed Shawn Guetschow as a part-time security guard when he was off duty from the city police force, publicly released video of it on Friday.

It showed the officer, Shawn Guetschow, intervening in the fight and scuffling with the girl, before falling to the ground and hitting his head on a table.

Guetschow, working as a security guard at the school, then pushed the girl’s head into the ground and used his knee on her neck for about half a minute before handcuffing her and walking her out of the cafeteria.

Jerrel Perez, the girl’s father, has called for criminal charges against Guetschow for using a type of restraint that was banned for Wisconsin law enforcement officers last year. He said his daughter was in therapy and seeing a neurologist for her injuries.

As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Perez “and activists from Kenosha, Milwaukee and Chicago stood outside the school district on Wednesday, where they likened the incident to Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and his use of knee chokehold restraint when he murdered George Floyd”.

Floyd, an African American man, was killed in Minneapolis in May 2020, sparking protests for racial justice and against police brutality which spread across the US and around the world.

In August 2020, Kenosha saw protests which turned violent after the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer.

After the 4 March incident this year, the Kenosha school district initially placed Guetschow on paid leave, the Journal Sentinel reported. He resigned from his part-time job with the school on Tuesday.

In his resignation letter, Guetschow complained that the school district has not supported him and that the incident has placed a heavy burden on his family.