I gotta say, I lurvs me a good cop bashing, but if the cop in question hadn't seen the guy go down, by the time he flipped the grenade in there all *I* could see on the video was a large yelling crowd. Th folks rendering aid did so with such gusto as to hide the folks kneeling and the injured guy.
Situational awareness and peripheral vision is often severely hindered by pro masks. I could actually buy that he was watching the other way (where more pyro was going off) and looked over in time to see a large crowd yelling when he had been ordered to disperse crowds so he tossed some CS over.
Must be my inner CSD coming out.
Also, as other's have said, those are NOT flash bangs.
ETA: $10 says the initial canister skipped. I've skipped full on grenades by firing them at too low of an angle, the weapon launched canisters are pretty easy to have that happen with. remember- Less Lethal, not Non Lethal.
Is it not part of a cop's job description to have a clue? Would I be considered liable and negligent if i did the same thing, even if I were wearing a pro-mask?
Upon further research, it looks like there are combo FB/CS grenades...somewhat like those combo cold/allergy meds. Why bring up OTC meds? Well, have you ever bought one of them in the past for 2+ symptoms, gotten better, and then gotten a cold later with only one symptom? Did you then take the meds, knowing the second drug was superfluous? Same thing here, except the FB part was the WRONG ANSWER. I can see FB/CS being just the ticket for a barricaded suspect. Not for a crowd, though, where straight CS would be a better choice as both more effective (more CS, which is persistent) and less dangerous (FB explosion). I can see some bean counter log weenie at the PD getting a chubby over buying just one sort of grenade.
So it's okay to huck ordnance without knowing your target or backstop around it, but only if you have a blue uniform?
Looks like.
Shooting a 37/40mm projectile of that mass & velocity at someone is deadly force. Period.
Are you calling a CS "grenade" an explosive device, or are you talking about something else?
Were I caught with one in flagrante delicto, I bet ATF would charge me with such, so yes.