Lawmaker condemns student video depicting police beheading

MADISON, Wis. – A Wisconsin state lawmaker has condemned a college student’s video depicting the beheading of a police officer as an attempt to incite violence.

The video shows University of Wisconsin-Madison students dressed as officers wearing pig masks, including one leading a black student to a noose made of the U.S. flag. Later, a machete-wielding black student chases the officers before the video cuts to a frame of the student holding a bloody, decapitated pig mask.

Republican Sen. Steve Nass calls the video “vile” in a statement Wednesday, saying police and the university should hold the students accountable.

The university said in a statement that it condemns and rejects the video’s “glorification of violence,” but that “all citizens have the rights to express political beliefs that others may find objectionable.”