Today’s police brutality video comes via a security camera that caught an NYPD officer beating a handcuffed Army vet. The Daily News has a description of the July 18th attack, but the video isn’t on line… yet. According to police sources, the officer (not pictured here) paused for 90 seconds during the beating to take a call on his cell phone, and then resumed “smashing the man with his baton.”
The recipient of the alleged beatdown, Walter Harvin, says officers stopped him as he tried to enter the DeHostos Apartment on W. 93rd Street, where his mother lives.
As I walked into the elevator he grabbed my arm. That's when I pushed him. I was on the floor and he kept beating me with the stick. He sprayed me with Mace. While I was on the floor, he handcuffed me. I don't remember too much about it.
Harvin, who was discharged from the Army in 2004 for post-traumatic stress disorder, was charged with assault and resisting arrest; the officer, 43-year-old David London, was stripped of his gun and badge pending an investigation. A source tells the News that Officer London took the cell phone call only because it was an emergency. [Insert donut shortage joke here.]
