The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has opened an investigation into the arrest of a Black man after a video of three white police officers allowing a police dog to repeatedly bite him surfaced. The man was treated at a hospital and released. He hasn’t been charged with any crimes.

The officers answered a report Monday morning that a man had broken into a business in Woodson Terrace, as per a police statement posted on Facebook.

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“Upon the officers arrival the subject left the business and was located by the officers walking towards another business. Our officers made contact with the subject and the subject immediately started threatening to kill the officers and identified as a sovereign citizen. The subject continued yelling obscenities and telling the officers he would not comply and he ‘will not obey your contract’,” the police statement read. 

The department further added that the man appeared to be on drugs and threatened officers, and they warned him the dog would be used if he continued to resist arrest. 

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After the subject was arrested the officers found suspected Methamphetamine on the subject which would explain why the officers were unable to restrain the subject, the statement added. 

Woodson Terrace police Chief Randy Halstead said in an email to the St Louis Post-Dispatch that his department was “fully cooperating” with the investigations being conducted by the FBI and the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office into last week’s arrest.

Federal officials and St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell declined to discuss their investigations with the newspaper.

Cellphone video from an onlooker shows the dog biting the man’s foot as he yells out in pain. The dog’s handler holds it by a leash but allows the biting to go on for about 30 seconds.

After the officer pulls off the dog, the man appears to take a step to run but stumbles, and the dog lunges at him again, biting a leg for another 30 seconds until the officer stops the animal.

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The man was treated at a hospital and released. He hasn’t been charged with any crimes.

Protesters gathered outside the Woodson Terrace Police Department on Friday to demand the firing and prosecution of the three officers.

“We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired,” said Zaki Baruti of the Universal African People’s Organization, as per KSDK news.

“When they release their dog on this person, even though he was in custody, it was reminiscent of when these canines were released upon our people during the Civil Rights era as we sought justice throughout America,” he added. 

With inputs from the Associated Press