ATLANTA – A video taken at a local IHOP restaurant has been getting a lot of attention. The video shows a police officer punching a female patron during an altercation. The officer, Jose Vidal, has been assigned to desk duty while the case is investigated. However, one witness has come out to defend the officer’s actions, calling them justified.

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Tanika Hudson, a witness and IHOP employee, says the woman was in the wrong.

“The lady started grabbing him. I guess she stratched him, so he pushed her away to try and get her off. She drew back and punched him. In defense he hit her back,” she said.

Hudson has seen videos of the incident and may be in some of them.

“The lady who had nothing to do with it, she reached out and I think that’s when she stratched him. He shoved her back like ‘get off’, and she reached back and sucker punched him real hard. It stunned him for a minute.”

Ashley Leavell, the women who hit and was hit, now faces criminal charges.

Hudson states that if the patrons had just left when the officer told them to, none of this would have happened.

He was not wrong. He was in the right. I think the woman should be prosecuted. You do not lay hands on an officer whose just trying to do his job,” added Hudson.