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Video appears to show police pepper spraying yelling protester
02:32 - Source: CNN
CNN  — 

A now-viral video is causing outrage at Kansas City, Missouri, police officers after they arrested a man who was yelling during a protest of George Floyd’s death, and one officer pepper-sprayed him.

The video was posted Saturday on Twitter and had been viewed several million times by Tuesday night.

In it, a man in a crowd of protesters is yelling at the officers facing him, a few feet away on the street. The protesters appears to be on a sidewalk.

The man yells that the police overreact, shooting people and using excessive force prematurely.

“If you ain’t got the balls to protect the streets and protect and serve like you was paid to do, turn in your damn badge,” the man yelled.

At one point, the man briefly steps forward into the street, then steps back into the crowd. Moments later, a group of about five officers, holding what appear to be cans of pepper spray, come to pull the protester out of the crowd.

As two officers reach to pull the man out, there’s some jostling, and the police start using pepper spray.

The officers are seen on the video pulling the man out and away, forcing him to the ground face down. As the other protesters shout their anger and surprise, some objects are apparently thrown at the line of police, and the officers begin spraying the crowd.

Police confirm the man was arrested

“This man was using his words and was responded to with weapons.” the poster of the video on Twitter wrote.

A spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department said in a statement the man was one of 151 people arrested over the weekend.

“The protestor was arrested for municipal/city protest related charges, he did not resist his arrest, however the associated response from the crowd was aggressive and violent by throwing various objects and physically interfering with the arrest, which is also a crime for which they were not arrested for at that time, that is what led to the officers response with pepper spray,” police spokesperson Jacob Becchina said.

While police say the man was arrested for protest-related charges, they did not specify which law he is accused of breaking.

Police are reviewing the incident

The “whole thing will be reviewed to include videos, concerns after action and complaints to our office of Community Complaints, etc,” Becchina said in an email to CNN.

While officers have been seen walking, talking and even kneeling with demonstrators at protests that have rocked the nation since Floyd’s death, some interactions between protesters and officers have turned violent.

Floyd died Memorial Day in Minneapolis during an arrest as a police officer knelt on his neck and other officers knelt on his back.

CNN’s Jessica King and Debbie Berger contributed to this report.