FOOTAGE HAS EMERGED showing a police officer wrestling an 11-year-old black girl to the ground in New York after she was wrongly accused of stealing a mobile phone.

The CCTV footage from outside a store in the Bronx shows the police officer approaching the school girl and pulling her towards him before placing has hands on her neck and bringing her down to the ground. He then flips her on her front and handcuffs her.

The child was later released without charge, Huffington Post reports and the City of New York decided not to prosecute the officer for use of excessive force during the arrest which occurred in February this year.

Under oath, the police lieutenant seen in the video said they both slipped and fell to the ground in a struggle and that the 11-year-old girl flailed her arms on the ground in order to prevent him from handcuffing her.

The girl’s parents claim she now cries in her sleep, has become withdrawn and is scared of police.

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