A San Francisco cop pepper splashed and beat a vagrant for declining to get off the transport.
In a video released by the Public Defender’s office, Officer Raymond Chu is shown waking up a man resting in the back of a Mini transport, and attempting to escort him off. At the point when the man, later distinguished as Bernard Warren, 36, protested, the cop struck him with a baton and pepper-showered him, driving him onto the street.
On out, Warren is heard saying to the officer, “Don’t touch me. I could beat your a- -.” Chu then becomes agitated and shoves Warren off the bus, then yells: “We done here? We done here? Yeah, keep walking,” before his strikes him with a baton in the back of his legs. The officers affirms in his police report that he had struck Warren with the mallet and pepper-splashed him, concurring to the Public Defender.
Warren was captured on charges of threatening a cop. He spent 2 weeks in behind bars but was discharged over prosecutor’s objections. He is booked to return to court on March 4, and could get up to one year in jail if sentenced of the charges, said Deputy Public Defender Andrea Lindsay.
“Fundamentally we have a situation where a man was sleeping, which is not a crime,” Coalition on the Homelessness Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach told the Huffington Post. “It started off as completely innocent. This should not be a police situation. By aggressively charging [Warren], this sends a message to the officer that his behavior was acceptable, that it’s okay to escalate non-criminal situations.”
The District Attorney’s Office is examining the case, concurring to spokesman Max Szabo. San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr has guarded Chu’s activities, saying he was only doing his job.
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccZjGRUEuL0