A grand jury in Western New York has dismissed assault charges against two police officers who shoved an elderly protester to the ground during a George Floyd protest in June.
Buffalo Police Department officers Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski had faced felony charges for shoving 75-year-old Martin Gugino to the ground, fracturing his skull and causing him to bleed from his head.
Those charges were dismissed by a grand jury panel, which voted to not charge the cops, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said at a press conference Thursday.
Flynn defended bringing felony charges against the officers at the press conference Thursday, saying video footage of the shove clearly showed the officers had committed a crime.
“I apologize for nothing,” Flynn said.
He added Gugino “should not have been shoved,” but said he agreed the activist should have been arrested because he was breaking a curfew that the city was under at the time.
Gugino spent a month in a hospital recovering from a fractured skull and brain injury after cracking his head on the ground during the altercation with the police officers.