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AN INVESTIGATION HAS been launched after a video emerged of police in California beating up a suspect who had been tasered.
Aerial footage, recorded by a news helicopter, showed the man falling off a horse, and then being stunned with a taser by a sheriff’s deputy.
Two deputies immediately began punching him in the head and kneeing him in the groin. At one point, 11 deputies surrounded him.
He appears to have been kicked 17 times, punched 37 times and struck with batons four times. Thirteen blows appeared to be to the head.
NBC Los Angeles reports that the series of events started when deputies went to a house to serve a search warrant in an identity theft investigation.
The suspect took off in a vehicle and police followed, starting a pursuit in Apple Valley – an area more than 80 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Francis Jared Pusok (30) allegedly abandoned the vehicle, before stealing a horse.
In the footage, he did not appear to move from his position lying on the ground for more than 45 minutes. He did not appear to receive medical attention while deputies stood around him during that time.
The full video can be watched here.
Convictions
Pusok has convictions for resisting arrest, animal cruelty, disturbing the peace, attempted robbery and failure to provide evidence of financial responsibility.
San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon told NBC the Taser was ineffective due to Pusok’s loose clothing.
“I can certainly understand the concerns in the community based on what they saw on the video,” McMahon said.
I’m disturbed by what I see in the video. But I don’t need to jump to conclusions at this point, until we do a complete and thorough investigation. If our deputy sheriff’s did something wrong, they’ll be put off work and they’ll be dealt with appropriately, all in accordance with the law as well as our department policy.
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Cops in America beating someone I don’t believe it !! He can count himself very lucky he wasn’t shot that seems to be first line of defence in American policing
Must be a day that ends in Y.
Yeah lucky he was not shot dead
It would never happen here, # sarcasm.
Whatever faults you can find with the Gardai, and there are many, you will not find a group of them who think that this sort of carry on is acceptable.
He’s a career criminal by the looks of his record. A fairly low human being. I don’t really care if he got the pizz beat out of him tbh.
All non-violent offences it seems. Violence should only be used by the police as a final option when all other options have been exhausted, not as an initial reaction to any and all situations.
Cops shouldn’t lower themselves to the same level. They are there to uphold the law, not break it themselves. They should at least be sacked for gross misconduct.
Egg – I’d agree if that’s the case, but this guy has been done for animal cruelty (from what I’ve seen only charged in mid to extreme cases), disturbing the peace (likely being a drunken lout but I’m open to correction) and I think the last one was armed robbery.
He’s filth, I don’t think what the cops did was right, but I don’t feel sorry for the guy either.
Scarr, I’d have no great sympathy for this lad either, but he doesn’t really matter in the greater scheme of things, behaviour like this from police is simply unacceptable. If he is filth as you say, and I don’t disagree, it is the role of the police to arrest him, and the role of the courts to punish him. The police taking on responsibility for punishment too is all a bit judge dredd for my liking.
A perfect example of how some cops act when there are no cameras and (seemingly) even when there are cameras around.
I hope all of these guys do hard time.
I hope they all find nice boyfriends inside.
“Serve and Protect”
“Serve and Protect”
What on earth is ‘failure to provide evidence of financial responsibility’?
Not looking after his kids, fairly common in that section of the US population.
Would that not be failure to comply with child support order? Just seems oddly worded.
“that section”? Why not just say “I’m not racist, but…..”
Bit of a gross generalistion of an entire group of people there dontcha think?
No I don’t think so Tricia. 70% of black kids are born without a father in the picture, it’s a massive problem probably the biggest problem facing that community and stating so isn’t racist.
53.7% of statistics are made up on the spot
Ah would you come off it, I’ve known of PLENTY of Irishmen who knocked up a woman and then fecked off to England, never to be heard from again.
As much as you’d like him to be black Top Cat, he wasn’t. From you’re various comments on different articles over the last few days it’s clear to see you’re a racist, specifically against black American’s.
American society is badly broken. Its gone back to the wild west. These police forces are no longer policing.
After 13 years of wars, the police force in the US has been replenished with returning soldiers and supplied with surplus military grade weapons.
Well there will be eleven more vacancies shortly, and possibly s sherif, unless he was watching a different video, where the suspect Was resisting .
Police forces are usually the only institution legally permitted to engage in violence. The law only maintains authority by public consent, without that consent only tyranny can be used by the authorities to maintain control. If the police abuse their privileges to adopt violence their authority will ultimately lose public consent. A lot of cops in the US seem to think themselves untouchable, if it ends up as the police vs the public, I’ll put my money on the public, and a lot of these cops will find out how small they really are when the badge they hide behind loses its influence.
Unfortunately they seem to be untouchable. Can’t remember the last conviction of a police officer for beating/killing someone.
That guy in South Carolina should definitely go down. The video footage of him shooting an unarmed man was about as damning to any kind of defense or reasoning that he could offer.
Except that if a passerby hadn’t filmed it, the original police lie that there was a scuffle and Scott took his taser would have stood.
What’s with thejournals obsession with small American local news stories? Can’t see how this is newsworthy here.
But yet you had to click on it and leave a comment? You didn’t have to read the article. The journal gives international news, not just minute by minute account of what Joan Burton is thinking..
They only seem interested in white on black crime coming from the States. I don’t think I’ve ever read a report on here of the black on black slaughter that happens every week in places like Chicago.
Here’s some white on white if you prefer that. http://thefreethoughtproject.com/officer-caught-camera-brutalizing-teenager-traffic-stop-attempted-delete-footage/
You don’t think it’s newsworthy that the country which styles itself the leader of the free world, is turning into a police state?
Seems to me that the barrel is full of rotten apples! How many cops (all armed with nightsticks, tasers, and guns) does it take to subdue a person suspected of identity theft?
Alls I knows there are 1.1million law “cops” in the US you are bound to get some bad apples even 1% of people is a sizable number also you are sometimes dealing with very dangerous armed people!
Gulf War vets coming home and becoming cops. Thus the madness..
Was the horse ok??
You don’t steal a mans horse in California.
Very disturbing watching this on tv ,,
Our gardai would never ever resort to this type of animal behaviour
He was white so no big deal
Why is this even news, he’s not black, move on nothing to see here. I need my fix of race baiting!
If this was happening to a police officer he or his colleagues would be authorised to use deadly force yet this man would be charged with assault if he had of defended himself!!!
So what does he do? lie there and take it? or try defend himself and risk being shot dead and then be labeled as criminal who attacked the police. These cowards should be locked up and any officer who stood by and didn’t intervene should be sacked
Uneducated, violent, primitive savages with no ability for empathy
The sheriff didn’t even bother watching the whole video, and then said “what happened afterwards, I don’t know!!” Wtf?
F^ck that..he deserves a bating if he’s a tramp.Look at his previous convictions,no angel.Lads like him need a good hammering.
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