A violent arrest by L.A. County deputies was caught on video. Now the man is seeking justice in court and the county is seeking to keep the footage out of the public eye.
The suspect, a man named John Doe, is a man who grew up in the middle class in the Los Angeles area and is now on life support, living with medical complications at a hospital.
The videotape has been deemed important by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and the federal government in order to help them solve a murder case that has been under investigation for four years.
It depicts the arrest of John Doe and his arrest at the time that the video was taken. Both of the men are white.
In the video, Doe can be seen in handcuffs attempting to get away from three county deputies. One shows him his rights, but Doe says he understood his rights and refused to hand it over.
The deputy asked for his hands so he could take him into custody. Doe refused and at that point grabbed at the deputy with all his might, trying to take his hands behind his back. The deputy fired his Taser when Doe grabbed him.
The deputies tell Doe he’s under arrest for committing an assault on a peace officer and resisting arrest. It’s unclear why he was being detained as Doe says he will fight the charges.
Doe is clearly not giving up. One deputy can be seen taking Doe into custody on his knees as Doe screams in pain.
The video was released publicly Wednesday by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sgt. John Rosich.
“What the video shows is that what we did as a result of being detained for over 4 minutes and the use of a Taser, the video shows they are very dangerous weapons we’ve never used for any purpose before,” Rosich said.
The video is now being withheld, Rosich said, because the deputies were disciplined last year for using them. The sheriff’s department has a policy for issuing Tasers, and the incident was covered under that policy.
Doe has also
