S.J.WEven if the old man said something like "fuck off pig" when the cop touched him, that does not give the officer the right to slam the old man into the ground. Again it all comes down to reasonable force, and no matter the history, what was said, or anything else the officer used excessive force.
I agree that it was probably excessive, but I don't know anything about what was happening.
I tend to give people in these situations the benefit of the doubt because there is often a ton info we don't know.
For example, I'm a social worker. There have been a few situations in the past year where foster kids have died in foster homes. There have been tons of news articles on these situations where social workers get tossed under the bus. They talk to bio-parents who say their kids were taken for no reason. Of course, the social workers in question can't respond because of confidentiality legislation, so the public doesn't know about the abuse and neglect and drug abuse that led to apprehending kids. They also don't know about the myriad of complicated health issues that contributed to the death of the child, not the terrible foster parents and social workers that are blamed.
There are always multiple sides to a story and a cell phone only captures a bit.