North Carolina town probing officer seen choking black man in prom attire

[May 11, 2018]  (Reuters) - A North Carolina police officer is under investigation after he was seen in a social media video choking and pinning to the ground a black man in formal wear who had just attended his sister's prom, authorities said on Thursday.

The incident took place on Saturday outside a Waffle House restaurant in the town of Warsaw. Anthony Wall, the man in the formal wear, posted the video on Facebook on Tuesday and it has been seen over 600,000 times.

Wall, 22, told local media the incident took place after he had taken his sister, 16, to the prom and they went for a bite to eat.

Such incidents "have to stop," he wrote in a message with the video.

Warsaw police said they had begun an investigation, but did not offer further details.

The video does not show what led up to the altercation in Warsaw, which has about 3,000 people and is 70 miles southeast of Raleigh.

Wall was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct for arguing with Waffle House employees, local TV station ABC 11 reported.

"I was pretty much trying to scream for air and trying to breathe because he was holding my throat," he told the broadcaster.

The officer in the video has not been formally identified. Many people who commented on the video in the Facebook post saw it as part of the simmering national debate about possible racial bias in U.S. policing.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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