Sacramento, CA — A Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputy is on paid vacation after a video surfaced showing him stomping on a man’s face and hitting him with his flashlight after tasering him.
Undersheriff Jaime Lewis says that they are investigating themselves after viewing the video.
“There are portions of that video that clearly have caused me concern,” Lewis said. “And that is exactly what has caused the department to initiate an investigation, so we can get to the bottom of it.”
The man being beaten in the video is 51-year-old John Madison Reyes, who said the incident started when he asked the deputy, whose car was blocking the road, to move.
“I asked him kindly to move the car,” Reyes said. “He glared at me and stared at me. And then, I said an expletive, ‘You need to move the car because I can’t get through.’”
That’s when this Sacramento deputy began badgering Reyes about his past record, which was completely irrelevant to this confrontation.
The deputy then tried to arrest Reyes, for no apparent reason, as the only charge he was given after being beaten and booked into jail, was resisting arrest.
According to the man who filmed the incident, Michael White, it was the officer who was at fault.
“The cop was walking around him, and he Tased him several times, and you could see the guy’s body convulse about three or four times,” White said. “And he’s not yelling or anything. He was not trying to get away.”
White told KCRA that he’s glad his video led to an investigation.
“I think [the officer] should get fired,” White said. “I think he should go to jail. I don’t think administrative leave is enough.”
Undersheriff Lewis, after saying that there should be an invesigation, then went on to lame Reyes for getting beaten.
“Let’s face it, had the subject complied with the officer’s directives from the initial contact and beyond, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about this today,” Lewis said.
Reyes, who now has a gash in his forehead and a black eye, told KCRA 3 that he could not comply with the officer’s commands to roll onto his stomach.
“How can I roll over when my body’s twitching with 100,000 volts going through it,” Reyes said.
Via http://thefreethoughtproject.com/man-asks-cop-nicely-stop-blocking-traffic-cop-stomps-head-beats/#XcuDod5VcTu0mYYc.99