VIDEO: 4 police officers caught brutally beating Black man put on paid leave
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Four police officers who used unnecessary force and brutally attached a black man, has now been placed on leave after a video of the incident surfaced, reports Buzzfeed.
The man, Robert Johnson, was seen on video talking on a cellphone and leaning against a rail in an apartment building when four policemen came out of an elevator and started to frisk him for no apparent reason.
Once no weapons were determined to be on Johnson, they allegedly asked him to sit down next to another man who was there talking to police. The police maintain that Johnson didn’t follow their orders.
They then began a vicious and brutal assault that was caught on camera, punching and badgering his body and dragging him.
“I don’t feel that our officers were at their best,” said Mesa Police Chief Ramon Batista. “I don’t feel this situation needed to go the way that it went.”
Batista said he believes the officer used unnecessary force and that’s why they were placed on leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
The person who filmed the video submitted it to the police chief and said: “Hey, this looks very alarming, and I need you to look at it,’” Batista told Fox 10 News. “I examined it, and I immediately opened up an investigation.”
The police chief also released the video to the public.
The footage was recorded on the night of May 23.
A spokesperson for the Mesa Police Department confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the four cops in the video — three officers and a sergeant — have been placed administrative leave.
Batista said following this incident the department will enact policy changes to “limit the opportunity where we will apply strikes to a person’s face or head absent the supporting conditions for that to occur,” and ensure more “stringent reporting of these events.”
Johnson’s attorney, Benjamin Taylor, said his client was “cooperative and following police instructions.”
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“Mr. Johnson was sitting peacefully against a wall when the assault began. He did not resist,” the lawyer said in a joint statement with fellow attorney Joel Robbins and pastor Andre Miller.
“The misconduct of these officers would have gone unnoticed if it had not been captured by surveillance videos at the apartment complex where the assault occurred.”
Taylor said Johnson is not faring well following the brutal police attack.
“He’s doing terribly,” Taylor said.
“He did not deserve the beating he took from that many officers. Mesa police have a culture of hurting and shooting and killing people and this is just another incident that shows how badly this department needs to be cleaned up.”
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