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MERIDIAN, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi police department has fired a white officer after video showed him repeatedly grabbing the neck of a black man being restrained by another officer and then approaching him from behind to shock his upper back with a stun gun.
The officer was fired for violating department procedure.
The police department has a "zero tolerance" policy regarding excessive force, Meridian police Capt. John Griffith told The Associated Press.
"This is not normal for our police officers," Griffith said Friday. "Our police officers are very professional."
The video , recorded by another officer's camera, shows the man dropping to the pavement after he's shocked.
The fired patrol officer, Daniel Starks, had chased the man July 14 after he was suspected of shoplifting at a Walmart store, WTOK-TV reported . The man had already been caught and was being restrained by other officers when Starks caught up with the group and stunned him.
"We attempt to be as transparent as we can," Meridian Police Chief Benny Dubose told the TV station. "We tell the public what we will tolerate, what we will not tolerate and that's basically what it boils down to. We have nothing to hide."
The case came to the police chief's attention after one of the other officers at the scene informed his lieutenant, who watched the video and then alerted Griffith, the captain recounted Monday.
"The silver lining in this is that the officers were self-reporting it up to their supervisors," Griffith told the AP.
The name of the man who was shocked hasn't been released.
Meridian is a city of about 38,000 people about 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Jackson, Mississippi.
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This story has been corrected to say the incident occurred on July 14.
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