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OGDEN — Ogden police are investigating a use-of-force incident out of Ogden High School.
A video shows the school officer grabbing and pushing a student into a locker, and now that student's family wants answers.
"It absolutely kills me to watch," Melissa Zinsky said. "I don't want to see anyone manhandle my child like that."
As Zinsky watches a snippet of video of her son, Zack, being pressed up against a school locker by an officer, she is outraged.
"I would like the officer to be held accountable for his actions," she said. Minutes before the altercation with the officer, Zack was busted for vaping at school.
"I handed him the puff bar and he said, 'All right, come with me. We're going up to the office. You're getting suspended'," Zack said.
Zack admits he wasn't compliant at first.
"Yes, I probably should have been walking towards the office," Zack told KSL-TV. "Honestly, I don't like cops."
Seconds before the camera is rolling, Zack said the officer, who was walking behind him, tried to trip him. Zack fired back.
"I kind of turned around and I was like, 'Yo, that (expletive) ain't cool, you know. That's petty. Like, that's not professional whatsoever. If you do that we're really gonna have an issue.'" Zack said he wasn't threatening the officer, and he continued.
"I told him, no, it was a freedom of speech along with me saying if he did not have that badge, I would have slapped him up against his bald head," Zack said.
That's the moment Chris Bertram, retired deputy chief with the Unified Police Department who was not involved in the case, said the issue turned from administrative to potentially criminal.
"That is a threat. And so I think the officer, under those circumstances, may react the way that he did," Bertram said after he watched the video.
The Ogden Police Department immediately opened a use-of-force case and said Zack may face criminal charges.
"We have to understand that a statement like that from a student that may not understand the realities of life, maybe he's been given bad advice, watched too many YouTube videos, have to understand that in the state of Utah, whether he has his badge on or off, he is still a police officer," Bertram said.
Zack's family believes the officer's actions were excessive and should be punished. "It breaks my heart to see this," Melissa Zinsky said.
Ogden police released this statement Wednesday on social media:
"The Ogden Police Department is aware of a personal cellphone video that has been shared publicly regarding a student at Ogden High School and the school resource officer who is attempting to take the student into custody. At this time there are both internal reviews of the incident along with potential criminal charges for the student involved. This is an active and ongoing investigation and as such, there are no other details to be released at this time."
