PHILADELPHIA (NNPA)—Thirteen Philadelphia police officers have been placed on administrative duties in the wake of a video showing officers punching, kicking and using batons on three suspects allegedly involved in an earlier shooting incident.

The action comes at a time when officers are grieving the death of the Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, the third officer to fall to gun violence in two years.

The video in question was taken on Monday night, May 5, by a Fox News helicopter in the city’s Hunting Park section. It is under review by the Internal Affairs unit and the district attorney’s office to determine if excessive force was used on the suspects.

According to Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, the incident started when members of a police narcotics team were following up a homicide investigation at Fourth and Ansberry streets.

Ramsey said officers were on edge, upset and tired from an exhaustive, round-the-clock police manhunt for Eric DeShawn Floyd and doesn’t believe the incident was racially motivated.

But he also said that doesn’t excuse their actions.

According to the commissioner, police observed four men get out of a gold Mercury Grand Marquis and walk to the corner.

One of them then fired at three other men standing on the corner. The man who fired fled the scene and his three companions got back in the car and drove off, with police in pursuit, Ramsey said.

“Obviously, this is still under investigation and review by Internal Affairs,” he said. “But I will say this, at least on the surface, it certainly does not look good in terms of the amount of force that was used. But we don’t want to rush to judgment. We want to look at the video and that video has also been sent out for enhancement. And I think it’s important to remember that officers observed these individuals’ involvement at a triple shooting at the time. There is also a lot of heightened emotions since Sgt. Liczbinski was murdered on the streets just Saturday. It’s up to District Attorney Lynne Abraham to decide if formal charges are going to be filed against them. All we can do is prepare and give her the information and she makes that determination. We conduct an administrative hearing after that decision is made. I have not interviewed anyone and I wasn’t there. Obviously, we’re concerned. We’ve removed people from the street temporarily. There’s no excuse for this, but fanning the flames and making accusation from afar is not in anyone’s best interests.”

The suspects were identified as Brian Hall, 23, Dwayne “Lionel” Dyches, 24, and Pete Hopkins, 19.

The video shows a car pulling over after being pursued and then surrounded by police.

The suspects are pulled from the car and it appears that some of the suspects were uncooperative. The video shows officers forcibly removing the suspects from the car and then kicking and punching the suspects.

Ramsey said the officers were hoping to arrest drug suspects and question them about the murder of Andrew Coach, 20, that occurred May 4.

Investigators suspect that the shooting was in retaliation.

“We have officers across the city that were feeling the impact of the murder of Sgt. Liczbinski,” Ramsey said. “But we don’t lower our standards simply because of the emotional state we’re all in right now.”

The Police Advisory Commission, the civilian agency that investigates allegations of misconduct on the part of officers, is prepared to follow through with its own review of the tape.

Commission Chairman Robert S. Nix also called for calm and stated that the commission is monitoring the situation to see what are the findings of Internal Affairs and the DA’s office.

“When you consider the circumstances in the city over the last few days, coupled with officers’ heightened sense of safety for themselves, there is a need to rethink who is being deployed, for how long and whether or not certain officers should even be responding to these kinds of situations,” Nix said. “More importantly, it is essential that we remain calm and allow for a thorough and objective investigation. We are confident that Commissioner Ramsey will fully investigate this matter and take any action that is appropriate.”