GRAPHIC VIDEO: San Diego cop tased, choked 12yo runaway boy

A San Diego sheriff’s deputy was caught on video tasing and wrestling a 12-year-old boy in a parking lot. Witnesses say the cop tried to suppress the video, while the sheriff argued the boy had attacked the cop and the use of force was justified.

Activists from Filming Cops shared the video with the Free Thought Project on Sunday. The graphic footage, riddled with expletives, shows a boy being wrestled to the ground and shocked into submission with a Taser. The altercation took place on Saturday, in the parking lot frequented by skateboarders in the community of Fallbrook, north of San Diego, California.

Witnesses who recorded the event told Filming Cops that the deputy punched the boy in the face before they began filming. They identified the boy as a 12-year old named Joshua. Afterwards, they said, the deputy approached them with a drawn Taser and demanded to see the recordings, erasing all but one.

(Warning: graphic language, violence)

At a press conference on Monday, Sheriff Bill Gore defended the deputy’s actions, saying the teen was a runaway, and that Deputy Jeffery Banks was merely trying to bring him home to his mother. He said the boy had been missing for about a day and a half, and had been reported as a runaway at least five times before.

“When you see the video, the juvenile is struggling on the ground. He’s not obeying commands. He’s wrestling with the deputy,” the sheriff said, adding that the deputy only used a Taser after the teen bit his forearm.

“In actuality what we had was an out-of-control juvenile,” Gore said.

Source: RT