On Friday 14 July activists from the Extinction Rebellion movement arrived in front of the Ministry of Climate and Environment in Warsaw. They started protesting against recent intervention of the forest guards and the police who removed a logging blockade in the planned Turnicki National Park.

"(…) we came in front of the Ministry of Climate and Environment demanding the release and exoneration of the detainees and establishing the Turnicki National Park. People glued themselves to the ground to block the gate of the building," reports Extinction Rebellion on Instagram.

Soon police officers arrived at the scene of the protest and tried to tear the activists' hands off the pavement. The course of events was being reported by Maciej Piasecki, formerly a reporter for OKO.press, now a freelancer. The journalist was broadcasting the events live on TikTok.

At one point Piasecki found himself the focus of the police officers' attention. The officers tried to chase him away from documenting police action against the activists. When obstructing the journalist did not have the desired effect, the police officers decided to overpower him using brute force.

One of the police officers approached Piasecki from behind, grabbed him by the neck and knocked him down. The intervention was carried out in such a clumsy manner that the officer himself fell down and broke his leg.

"I broke my leg! Aaaaah," the police officer can be heard shouting in the footage released by the activists.

According to the press.pl portal, the injured policeman is Staff Sgt. Jakub Pacyniak. He is the press officer of the 3rd Local Police Station in Warsaw, located in Ochota on Opaczewska Street.

The journalist was taken to the same police station the injured press officer works at. The police officers wanted to detain Piasecki for "violating the bodily integrity of a police officer." Ultimately, however, the man was only questioned as a witness of the press officer's accident. After three hours he returned home without being charged.