Warning: This story and video contain images some people might find disturbing.
A video filmed in New York has gone viral showing a mother clinging to her baby son as he's ripped from her arms by police officers.
Jazmine Headley, 23, was waiting in the Human Resources Administration office in the New York suburb of Brooklyn on Friday (local time) when the incident occurred.
She had been waiting to collect a voucher for city-funded day care with her one-year-old son in her arms when things suddenly turned ugly, Vice News reports.
The young mother arrived at the office to discover that all the seats had been taken, so she decided to sit on the floor, according to a Facebook post by Nyashia Ferguson, who shot the video.
Ms Headley was then approached by a security guard who told her she couldn't sit on the floor because she was blocking the hallway. When the mother didn't move, things escalated after the security guard summoned a supervisor and the police.
In the video, Ms Headley can be seen surrounded by at least seven New York City police officers as she lies on the floor clinging to her baby boy.
"They're hurting my son," Ms Headley shouts, as one of the police officers appears to aggressively attempt to separate the mother and her son.
New York's Attorney General-elect, Letitia James, took to Twitter to express outrage after viewing the video online. She called the actions of the police "appalling and contemptible".
The New York Police Department (NYPD) released a statement to Vice News, trying to provide an explanation for the actions in the video, which has since gone viral, attracting some 384,000 views and over 10,000 shares.
The statement said police officers were called to the incident after "unsuccessful attempts to remove this individual from the facility due to her disorderly conduct towards other, and for obstructing the hallway".
New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson called the video "disturbing" on Twitter, adding that officers "arresting Jazmine Headley and prying her son from her arms speaks for itself".
He said the incident "reflects a wide range of problems with our justice system, which too often criminalises poverty, disproportionately punishes petty behaviour, and reactively separates parents from children..."
Ms Headley's mother, Jacqueline Jenkins, told ABC7 she was "devastated to see something like that happen to my daughter and grandson".
Newshub.
