Three attendees at a City Council meeting Monday criticized members for not publicly addressing the furor that resulted last week from the video release on a watchdog web channel of city patrolman Travis Glass punching a man in the face at a Fairway Drive apartment during an investigation July 4.

“The silence is deafening,” Bridgette Jackson said on what she called “deeply disturbing” “police brutality.”

She’s not “anti-police,” Jackson said. “(But) I’m anti-brutality, anti-abuse of power and anti-silence when neighbors are hurt.”

Glass and other officers were investigating a confrontation that occurred between Ryan Coke, 43, and another apartment complex resident, with Glass forcing his way in, after Coke and apartment tenant Melissa Gleixner, 35, refused to give their names — telling police no crime had been committed, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed by Glass against Coke.

Glass admitted to punching Coke in the affidavit, which he wrote to support misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and harassment.

Glass went after Coke, grabbing his wrist and telling him to put down a cigarette, and the defendant flipped a coffee table and tried to pull his arm away. Glass was “struck on the head by the defendant,” lost his grip on the defendant’s arm and, after Coke fell onto a couch, threw the punches, according to the police report.

The struggle between the two continued afterward, with another patrolman helping Glass get Coke under control, according to court documents.

“City Council should respond transparently and proactively” to concerns about the incident among residents, said licensed clinical psychologist Sarah Edmiston. “To restore a sense of safety and trust.”

When people responsible to protect the community become a source of fear, it erodes the foundation of such trust, Edmiston told council.

It makes sense to look at the incident through a “trauma-informed lens,” Edmiston said.

Public servants need to be held to the highest standards, she added.

“The longer the silence, the louder the message that justice and transparency are optional,” Jackson said.

“Until that incident, I believed that our police were kind of pretty friendly,” city resident Tim Baker told council.

The members could “go a long way” toward easing public concerns by releasing the bodycam footage of the incident, Baker said.

Glass, who told the apartment occupants that he was in charge of the police response to the incident, “was not doing what he was supposed to do,” said meeting attendee Ahmil Johnson.

“Has he been placed on administrative leave?” Jackson asked.

Council members didn’t respond to the attendees’ concerns — nor to a reporter’s request for comment after the meeting, with solicitor Mike Wagner saying it was a personnel matter.

Obtaining the bodycam footage would require a Right-to-Know request, and the city in this case would likely be able to withhold the footage under exceptions permitted in the Right-to-Know law, according to Wagner.

Glass admitted to the defendant at the police station later that the defendant was correct in claiming he didn’t need to identify himself under Pennsylvania law, the officer stated in the affidavit.

Glass entered the apartment following the refusal to secure IDs out of fear that Coke would come back with a weapon if he disappeared into the apartment — and because he didn’t want to prolong the incident, according to the affidavit.

A fellow officer who wrote an affidavit of probable cause to support resisting arrest, obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct charges against Gleixner by contrast argued that Glass had legal justification for demanding identifications, because the police were investigating a possible crime of harassment that could have been committed by either Coke or the resident with whom he had argued with outside.

While Pennsylvania is not a “Stop and ID” state, police can demand identification in traffic stops and if they have “reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe you’re involved in criminal activity” that would justify detainment, according to a legal blog post by the Worgul, Sarna and Ness law firm of Pittsburgh.

A participant in the July 4 incident has filed a complaint against the city’s Police Department in connection with the incident, and that complaint will be reviewed according to the normal process, Police Chief Joe Merrill said last week.

Because it included use of force at an actionable level, the incident will also be reviewed by the department’s Use of Force Board, Merrill said.

And because the incident resulted in charges, the courts will also have the opportunity to sort out the legal issues, according to Merrill.

The video of the incident went viral after it appeared on the LackLuster YouTube channel.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.