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Sports

Portuguese Cops Beat Fans in Front of Small Child

Portuguese club Benfica won the Primeira Liga title for a second straight year, but the celebration was marred by a terrible scene of cops beating fans.

Benfica won the Primeira Liga title for a second straight year, the first repeat for the club since 1984, but the celebration was marred by clashes between fans and riot police. In this video from the site of the game in Guimaraes, an elderly man, a middle-aged man, and two younger children are sitting in some grass, talking to cops in riot gear. It's believed they are all family members—father, son, and grandsons—and at one point the son gets up, gestures to one of the cops, and the cop starts beating him.

The grandfather tries to pull the cop off his son and he gets punched in the face twice, before the older child steps in his way and the cop resumes beating the son with a baton while another cop holds him from behind. All the while the small child watches as his father is manhandled by police. Eventually another cop in riot gear scoops the kid up and takes him away. It's still unclear what set this all into motion but, Jesus Christ, the kid is jumping up and down as his dad gets beat up by armored police. There's not a whole lot in the way of context that makes that justifiable.