In this screenshot from a security video, Kareem El, second from right, speaks with a security forces airman outside Star Bar on Gate 2 Street in Okinawa city, Okinawa, Nov. 22, 2025. (Star Bar)
An American civilian whose violent arrest by U.S. military police on Okinawa was captured on viral video says the unprovoked takedown left him injured, traumatized and demanding answers.
Two videos posted online show a military police officer lifting and slamming Kareem El to the pavement along Gate 2 Street in Okinawa city early Nov. 22. The incident has ignited online anger and exacerbated tensions between the U.S. military and the local community.
El, a 32-year-old Washington, D.C., native who identified himself as a former Marine captain, said he was waiting for a friend outside Star Bar around 2 a.m. when military police approached and asked for identification.
“I told them I didn’t intend to give them the ID because I was a civilian and wasn’t required to,” El said by phone Friday. “There was a brief back-and-forth that resulted in me being told, ‘If you don’t produce the ID, you’re going to the ground.’ And I consistently affirmed that I was not required to provide ID.”
The office of civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who is representing El, said in a statement Saturday that he suffered a head injury, wrist lacerations, cuts and abrasions, and “significant psychological trauma.”
El said he plans to visit a hospital for an evaluation after he returns to the United States on Tuesday. He said his legal team is investigating options and that he hopes “to get justice from the situation.”
El’s friend, a Bermuda national who declined to be named, recorded the videos. They were first posted Nov. 23 on the Facebook page of Washington, D.C.-based food truck Garlic Sensations and reshared two days later by the popular Air Force amn/nco/snco page, prompting widespread outrage.
Star Bar owner Tomohisa Takahashi said El had been drinking quietly with others before the incident. “They didn’t seem to be drinking that much, and they weren’t loud at all,” he told Stars and Stripes at the bar Monday.
Security camera footage from the bar shows El leaving at 1:56 a.m. Six U.S. military police walk into view about 15 seconds later. One officer approaches El, and the two talk. El places his hands in his pockets about a minute later.
Four minutes after that, the officer grabs El by the shoulders and slams him onto the pavement. Two officers then pin him and struggle for roughly five minutes before lifting El to his feet and escorting him toward Kadena’s Gate 2.
“I don’t think there’s any circumstance where someone with their hands in their pockets, who’s peacefully engaging, to find themselves suplexed to the ground like this,” El said.
In this screenshot from security video, a security forces airman lifts Kareem El by the shoulders outside Star Bar on Gate 2 Street in Okinawa city, Okinawa, Nov. 22, 2025. (Star Bar)
U.S. Forces Japan commander Air Force Lt. Gen. Stephen Jost has ordered an investigation into the incident, said spokesman Air Force Col. John Severns. El is not connected to the military and was detained by a liberty patrol consisting only of U.S. military police, he wrote in a Nov. 26 email.
El said he was on Okinawa for business. He arrived Nov. 18 and planned to travel to Tokyo on Nov. 29 and return to the U.S. on Tuesday.
El said he was commissioned into the Marine Corps in 2015 and served as a logistics and aerial delivery officer on Okinawa from 2016 to 2019 before separating in 2023.
Stars and Stripes reporter Keishi Koja contributed to this report.
AloJapan.com