A police officer in Sacramento has been placed on administrative leave after a video of him throwing a black man to the ground and punching him for jaywalking has gone viral.
According to the Associated Press, police say the officer tried to stop the man, identified as Nandi Cain Jr., after he was seen crossing a street illegally on Monday. The men began to argue, and the pedestrian challenged the officer to a fight. The officer then charged the man to take him into custody, throwing him on the ground and striking him in the face with his hands.
Cain’s girlfriend, Antoinette Stewart, told local news station affiliate FOX40 that she could see Cain cutting across a street on the walk home from his manager job, but that he has no arrest record.
Naomi Montaie, a witness who lives in Cain’s and Stewart’s apartment complex, recorded the altercation starting from just before the officer charged at Cain. In the video, Cain is seen taking his jacket off and dropping it to the ground behind him before flashing his palms to the officer. The officer appears to be speaking to dispatch before charging at Cain. After the tackle and strikes, the officer and a second cop arrest Cain as other officers slowly join the scene.
https://www.facebook.com/naomi.montaie/videos/1028779440585463/
Montaie later posted the video to Facebook, telling FOX40 that she was in shock. When officers questioned her after the incident, they told Montaie they were trying to stop Cain for jaywalking.
A Sacramento police spokesperson didn’t confirm Cain’s identity or his offense to FOX40, and also didn’t say if there are body or dashboard camera recordings of the arrest.
The police department told the Associated Press that the cop’s actions appear to show “unacceptable conduct.”
“I never witnessed anything like that. He just kept hitting him, and kept hitting him, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, why you hitting him like that? Why you hitting him like that? You need to stop hitting him,’” Montaie told FOX40. “Any human being don’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.”
H/T the Root
