© CBS LAScreenshot of cellphone video showing a Federal Protective Service officer apparently kicking a handcuffed man in the head during an arrest.
An abusive officer was publicly exposed this week after a vigilant citizen recorded him kicking a handcuffed man in the face. The man was no threat, on his stomach, and completely subdued when this federal officer decided to waylay his foot across the man's face.
The man who filmed this deprivation of rights, Alex Garcia, gave the video to CBS2 in Los Angeles. The video shows a cut and dry case of police brutality.
"One of the officers started handcuffing him. The other one was on top of him and socked him on the back," Garcia said.
According to CBS 2, these officers were not local Pomona cops. They were actually federal officers who report to the Department of Homeland Security. Federal officers protect buildings like Social Security offices, which happens to be the place in front of which this arrest took place.
Garcia told CBS 2 that he pulled out his phone and began recording because he felt like the officers were using excessive force during the arrest — prior to one of them kicking the subdued man in the face.
"They were chasing him or whatever ," said Garcia, "he starts to back off. He starts backing away, they pull out their Tasers, he said don't shoot, don't shoot. So they shoot him, they Tase him and he falls to the floor."
After tasing the man, for apparently no reason according to Garcia, the officers were able to quickly place cuffs on the unidentified man before assaulting him further.
"Walked up to his face and just kicked him, like, in the face. The guy was already in handcuffs on the floor. There was no need. He wasn't struggling, he wasn't resisting arrest. He's Tased on the floor in handcuffs," Garcia said.
This is the second such instance just this month of cops caught on video either kicking or stomping handcuffed suspects when the suspects pose no threat.
Concerns over excessive force only intensified earlier this month after Hartford, Connecticut, police released dash camera footage of a controversial arrest — showing an officer in street clothes walk up to a handcuffed suspect sitting on the curb, and kick his head into the ground — for no apparent reason.
"That there is obviously of serious concern to the police department and now to the state's attorney's office," Hartford Deputy Police Chief Brian Foley asserted, according to WFSB.
Ricardo Perez' mugshot — eyes bruised and one swollen shut, a large bandage on his forehead, and his right jaw alarmingly distended — was sufficiently disturbing to spark an immediate internal investigation, even before the department viewed the video.
As long as these videos continue to catch cops acting so brutal and reckless, the divide between police and the policed will continue to grow.
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