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The loss of feeling towards other human beings. It makes us act horribly.

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the city of Buffalo should consider firing the officers involved in a now-viral video of police pushing a 75-year-old protester to the concrete where he laid for several minutes with blood pooling under his skull.

Cuomo's comments come as Albany weighs a suite of police reforms following a tumultuous week of civil unrest and nightly dispatches from the streets of New York City showing clashes between police and protesters. Thursday morning he said he hadn’t seen recent videos of police exhibiting undue violence. By Thursday afternoon he was calling for an investigation of of police abuses.

Friday he said watching the footage from Buffalo made him physically ill.

“I was sick to my stomach,” Cuomo said during his daily briefing in Albany. “It was the same feeling I’ve had for 90 of the last nights when we had the death toll from the coronavirus.”

Cuomo said he spoke with the man “who thankfully is alive” Friday morning. Martin Gugino is in serious but stable condition at Erie County Medical Center, according to local reports.

Buffalo police had initially issued a statement Thursday saying the man tripped and fell, but when the video from local radio station WBFO began to circulate across the globe, local and state leaders stepped in.

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All 57 of the members of the Buffalo Police Department's Emergency Response Team resigned Friday from the unit which responds to riots and other crowd control situations, the president of the union that represents Buffalo police officers told The Buffalo News.

Two law enforcement sources confirmed the resignations.

Two members of the Emergency Response Team were suspended without pay late Thursday after they were involved in pushing a 75-year-old protester to the ground as they were clearing the area in front of Buffalo City Hall at the emergency curfew. The Erie County District Attorney's Office is investigating the incident. No charges have been filed.

The Emergency Response Team members have not quit the police department, but have stepped down from the tactical unit, according to the sources.

Spectrum News first reported the development on Twitter, along with WIVB-TV.

The union representing Buffalo police officers told its rank and file members Friday that the union would no longer pay for legal fees to defend police officers related to the protests which began Saturday in downtown Buffalo and have continued on and off, according to one source. The union is upset with the treatment of the two officers who were suspended Thursday.

" Our position is these officers were simply following orders from Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia to clear the square," said Buffalo Police Benevolent Association President John Evans. "It doesn't specify clear the square of men, 50 and under or 15 to 40. They were simply doing their job. I don't know how much contact was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell backwards."

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The Emergency Response Team members have not quit the police department, but have stepped down from the tactical unit, according to the sources.

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Our position is these officers were simply following orders

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The PBA will pay for any defense costs for the two officers, Evans said, but not for any members of the Emergency Response Team or SWAT in regards to the protesting.

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Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
Fine. buffalo doesn’t need a military unit, and now they don’t have one.

Win win.

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Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
Fine. buffalo doesn’t need a military unit, and now they don’t have one.

Win win.

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested without evidence that the 75-year-old man whose head was cracked open by Buffalo law enforcement last week was an “ANTIFA provocateur,” alleging the protester was seeking to “set up” the police officers who assaulted him.

“Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN,” Trump wrote on Twitter, citing the conservative cable channel One America News Network.

Trump added: “I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”

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Trump’s tweet Tuesday echoed a recent OANN segment about a report from a website called the Conservative Treehouse, which alleges Gugino “was attempting to capture the radio communications signature of Buffalo police officers.” The report states that the “capture of communications signals … is a method of police tracking used by Antifa to monitor the location of police.”

Neither OANN nor the Conservative Treehouse offered any evidence to support their claims about Gugino, who is a longtime peace activist from Amherst, according to The Buffalo News. An attorney for Gugino did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s tweet and Gugino’s current condition.