Trump wrote on Twitter overnight that the man, Martin Gugino, “fell harder than was pushed” in footage captured by a TV crew in Buffalo, New York on Friday.The footage led to two police officers being charged with assault.
“Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur,” Trump wrote, referencing the decentralised radical group Antifa, which stands for anti-fascists.
“I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”
Mr Gugino was shown approaching a line of police, before being pushed backwards and falling onto the footpath. Blood could be seen spilling from his head, but while one officer appeared to lean down to check on him, a colleague seemingly urged the officer to keep walking.
The two charged officers, Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski, have pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault, and have been released without bail. They are currently suspended, and 57 other officers resigned from the emergency response team in “solidarity” with the duo.
According to CNN, Mr Gugino, a longtime activist, is currently still hospitalised.
Black Lives Matter protests have swept the US and the world, with hundreds of thousands expressing their exhaustion and anger with ongoing police brutality and racial injustoce after the death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of police on May 25.
Many filmed incidents of police brutality like the one in Buffalo have done little to reduce tensions.
“The president is tweeting conspiracy theories about the Buffalo incident based on no evidence, no proof,” Cuomo wrote on Twitter after Trump’s post.
“Was the blood coming out of his head staged? Were our eyes lying to us? No. The man is still in the hospital & the president is disparaging him.
