YouTube Video Captures Philadelphia Cop Striking Woman at Puerto Rican Day Parade

This just in from Philadelphia, as reported by Philly.com:

The Philadelphia Police Department this morning opened an internal affairs investigation into an officer who was captured on video punching a woman in the face during Sunday's Puerto Rican Day parade.

The department had no immediate comment on the video, which depicts an unidentified police officer take a swing at a woman while she is walking away from a group of officers. The officer apparently thought the woman threw beer at police.

The woman, who is not identified, is shown falling to the ground, her face bloodied. In the seconds before the punch, the woman had been walking around a group of people and police officers. Someone near her in the crowd can be seen throwing some liquid into the air, toward the officers.

The woman was issued a citation for disorderly conduct, police said. It appears in in the video that she had sprayed silly string from a can.

The police officer in the video will be taken off the street pending the outcome of the investigation, police said.

Here is the video on YouTube (note: the original poster has now diasbled embedding, so we have to embed the video using another channel):

During the video, one woman who is with the man filming the incident tells him to stop the tape since the police would take it away from him. The man said not to worry about it and he continues to film. The two people were discussing if indeed the incident was captured on tape.

UPDATE: Philly.com has reported the identity of the police officer, who is actually a highway patrol supervisor. The story confirmed that the officer in question is named Lt. Jonathan Josey II. He is 39 years old. The updated report also quotes a Philadelphia police spokesperson:

Police spokesman Lt. Ray Evers said the department is "fully aware" of the video and what it depicts. He said the officer involved has been identified and Internal Affairs opened up an investigation in to the incident this morning. He said Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who is in San Diego at a conference, is also aware of the video.

Evers declined to publicly identify the officer, but did say he is a supervisor in Highway Patrol. He did not know if the officer had been placed on desk duty. Police also declined to identify the woman, who was given a disorderly conduct citation for the incident.

According to Evers, the 39-year-old woman's citation states "liquid and some other objects were thrown at a group of officers causing a large crowd."

She was the only person given a citation for the incident, Evers said.