Philadelphia cop caught punching woman in the face (VIDEO)

The Philadelphia Police Department is in hot water after a video has surfaced showing an officer with the force striking a woman in the face during this weekend’s Puerto Rican Day parade.

Video was published on YouTube over the weekend that documents the events immediately before an unidentified woman in attendance at Sunday’s was sucker-punched by a large police officer, prompting blood to gush from the victim’s face.

“Philadelphia Police Brutality” was uploaded by Youtube user Gisela Valentin on Sunday and by Monday afternoon the clip had made it to the front page of the popular sharing-site Reddit and was generating new comments every few seconds.

Although the police department has yet to issue a formal explanation for the assault, the evidence caught on camera paints a story that has many laptop critics to condemn the cops for assaulting a woman seemingly without provocation.

In the brief, 32-second clip, a crowd of people are showing celebrating in the street of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during this weekend’s parade, and one suspect, carrying a Puerto Rican Flag, is seen throwing water from a plastic bottle into a mass of parade-goers. A separate person, the victim, is seen discharging something from what appears to be an aerosol can, perhaps novelty silly-string, into the crowd.

Seconds later, a cop who had earlier had his back to both persons leaves the crowd, approaches the woman with the spray-can and assaults her with a right hook to the face. She drops instantly and video shows that her face is bloodied within seconds. From there, the cop grabs the woman’s hands from behind her back and cuffs her on the spot.

A local Fox affiliate quotes Philadelphia Police Department spokesman Lt. Ray Evers, who claims an Internal Affairs investigation has already been opened and high-ranking officials on the force are “fully aware” of the video. Evers adds the unidentified woman, 39, was cited because "liquid and some other objects were thrown at a group of officers causing a large crowd” and issued a disorderly conduct ticket.