LOS ANGELES (CNN WIRE/WBTW) – A criminal investigation is underway in Los Angeles, after video showed a violent traffic stop involving deputies.
A passenger in the car says it was an example of police brutality.
The sheriff says he is reviewing department’s policy and protocols.
A deputy stop escalates into a fight and the passenger, Omar Medina, took this video Sunday afternoon.
He says his brother Jesus was driving away from a 7-11 ATM in Lynwood to go pick up a bumper, when they were stopped.
We don’t hear it in the video, but Medina says the deputy told them they were stopped for tinted windows and expired license plates.
“It’s a regular traffic citation, you know a fix it ticket,” Medina said. “The DMVs are closed. We can’t do anything about nothing.”
For much of the video the deputy appears to have his hand on the door handle while Medina, Jesus and a nephew in the back are telling him to call his supervisor and Medina is calling 911.
“He tried to unlock the door open it,” one of the people in the car is heard saying. “He hasn’t even asked me for my license insurance or nothing.”
More deputies arrive and struggled to pull 33-year-old Jesus out of the car and arrest him.
“It turns out that the rear passenger was arrested for possession of methamphatimes for sales and there was an act of trying to rid the narcotics from the location,” Los Angeles county Sheriff Alex Villanueva said. “However, it was intercepted and thankfully by someone, by a bystander, the entire thing may have just been a distraction.”
Medina says he doesn’t know anything about his teenage nephew and whether he had drugs. He also says both he and the nephew were taken to jail that day, and released the next morning.
Jesus is still in custody.
The sheriff says Jesus is accused of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, resisting an officer with force and driving without a license.
Sheriff Villanueva also says a female deputy was hit in the stomach and broke her arm in three places.
Medina says this was about abuse of power.
“Police brutality is at an all-time high right now, especially with this coronavirus going around now,” Medina said.
Sheriff Villanueva says a criminal investigation is ongoing, but he says he will look into policy and protocol to see if there was something the deputies could have done differently.
