New York furore over police beating video

"It was very painful to see one of our members being treated like that," Rabbi Moishe Feiglin, director of the Alternative Learning Institute for Young Adults, the facility where the incident occurred, told The New York Times.

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"It seemed like a senseless beating and we felt compassion for this young guy being beaten like that. We all need to have more compassion," Feiglin said.

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The clip, captured by a surveillance camera in the center's lounge, shows 21-year-old Ehud Halevy fending off blows for more than two minutes as he is repeatedly punched in the torso and head by New York Police Department officer Luis Vega and hit with a baton by another officer, Yelena Bruzzese.

A New York police spokesman said Vega had been placed on modified duty pending the investigation.

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The incident at the Jewish center occurred Oct 8 but became a focus of public attention this week after the surveillance camera video was published by CrownHeights.info, a community news website focusing on the Crown Heights neighborhood in the Brooklyn borough of New York City and on Jewish issues.

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