Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans said on Tuesday that a man in a confrontation with an off-duty police officer  which had been captured on video in the Back Bay this spring “wasn’t violently tackled, his head wasn’t slammed to the ground, and his hair wasn’t pulled.”

Evans, addressing a high-profile encounter on one of Boston’s busiest streets, said that there were “minor issues” with the officer’s actions, and “there will be some counseling,” but no penalties.

He said that most witnesses and the man involved told investigators that the man had tripped on his own and fallen to the pavement and that the officer had held, rather than slammed, his face to the ground. He said that the officer “clearly believed that his [car] window was, in fact, broken by the victim.”

To pursue a suspect, Evans said at a news conference, “An off-duty officer has every right to activate himself”,. “That’s what he did here. . . . If someone commits a crime, I expect my officers to act.”

But the lawyer for the man said that the officer was not justified in chasing and arresting his client.

Carl Williams of the ACLU of Massachusetts  said,“If you’re training your officers to jump on people . . . that’s worrisome, because no crime was committed,”.

The May 24 incident, recorded on video by an onlooker and posted online, showed that Officer Edward P. Barrett was on top of a pedestrian with his knee on the man’s back. Barrett, who was at the time assigned to West Roxbury, was wearing a red-colored Red Sox jersey and what appeared to be his uniform pants, but no badge was visible.

By Prakriti Neogi