Four Police Officers Suspended in Beating, Tasing of Unarmed Student Caught on Cell Phone Video

By: Sammy Rose Saltzman
Topics: Caught on Tape

VIDEO COURTESY OF CBS AFFILIATE KPIX

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) San Jose Jose, Calif. police say four officers present at the beating of an unarmed Vietnamese student have been placed on paid leave. The student, 20-year-old Phuong Ho, was struck repeatedly by police with batons and a Taser gun — and the whole event was caught on cell phone video.

The officers are being investigated on criminal charges in the Sept. 3 incident, a San Jose Police spokesman said.

The cell phone video, posted by the San Jose Mercury News on its Web site late Saturday, shows one officer hitting Vietnamese student Phuong Ho with a metal baton more than 10 times, including once on the head. Another officer is seen using his Taser gun on the San Jose State math major.

The final baton strike in last month's incident appears to take place after handcuffs have been attached to Ho's wrists. The last baton strike ought to bring a felony charge, said Roger Clark, a police expert and a retired lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

"It takes me back to the day I saw the Rodney King video on TV," said Clark. The 1991 videotaped beating of the black motorist in Los Angeles resulted in charges against several officers and their acquittal the following year spawned a riot.

Officers arrested Ho on suspicion of assaulting one of his roommates. He was not armed when police arrived and he told the newspaper he did not resist arrest.

The confrontation began Sept. 3 when Ho's roommate, Jeremy Suftin, put soap on Ho's steak. The two scuffled, and Ho picked up a steak knife, saying that in his home country he would have killed Suftin for doing what he did.

Police were called, and four officers responded.

Officer Kenneth Siegel encountered Ho in the hallway, but could not understand the student's accent, police reports said. Ho then ignored a police command to stand still, reports said.

When Ho tried to follow Siegel into his room, officer Steven Payne Jr. moved to handcuff Ho. Payne wrote in his report that he pushed the student into a wall and then forced him to the floor when he resisted being handcuffed.

Ho, who weighs more than 200 pounds, said his glasses fell off. As he went to pick them up, the officers struck him, he said.

Another one of Ho's roommates, Dimitri Masouris, captured the events on his cell phone. An officer can be heard on the video shouting, "Turn over!" Ho can be heard moaning and crying as he's struck.

"In philosophy, they call it 'dehumanization,"' Ho told the Mercury News. "So when they think me a dangerous guy, they don't treat me like I was human. They hit me like an animal or something."

Masouris said he considered the police response excessive. He sold the tape to San Jose lawyer Duyen Hoang Nguyen, who is representing Ho.

The Mercury News obtained a copy of the video and showed it to Daniel Katz, San Jose's assistant police chief. The police department is taking the matter very seriously, he said.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said the incident would be investigated by the internal affairs division of the San Jose Police Department and the results forwarded to the Santa Clara County district attorney for possible criminal prosecution.

"Both investigations must respect the constitutionally guaranteed right of due process, which belongs to all parties to an investigation," Reed said Sunday in a statement.

The city's large Vietnamese-American community is already angry over the police shooting of a mentally ill Vietnamese man in May, the newspaper said in an editorial about Ho's beating. The lack of public disclosure in the investigation that followed was also a problem, the paper said.

Police experts said the grainy, shaky video is difficult to view and may not show actions by Ho that justified the officers' response. Nevertheless, several said the video raises serious concerns.

"Once he is handcuffed, then he is helpless," said Frank Jordan, a former San Francisco police chief and mayor. "If you can show that his hands are behind his back, and he is handcuffed, that is where you get brutality. That would be excessive force."

Siegel and Payne didn't respond to written requests for comment sent through department officials and their union.

2 Comments Have Your Say
Email Story Send to a Friend
Share This Tell Your Friends
Tweet This Tweet This
More Share It

Add a Comment

by zephyr1408 October 29, 2009 11:46 AM EDT

I watched the video from the prespective of being a 30 year police officer, supervisor, and have myself completed numerous internal affairs investigations. Let me explain what exactly will happen here and why the Chief of Police should have severely limited his comments as related to California Law.

1.The video shows nothing unusual. We as the public will never watch a police officer use force without some "gut feeling" we think the officer should of used a "karate move" and disabled the suspect immediately. We (the public) are not aware the police never fight fair---never. As police officer we are taught to overwhelm the suspect in numbers and if that does not work we are instructed to use the tools on our belts; batons and taser, ect.,. Everything I see in the video indicates the suspect is still resisting (at one point he is on his back with his feet free to kick an officer square in the face). The entire time I can hear the officers issuing verbal commands and it is more likely than not "Sir Stop Resisting". Also in the suspects interview with the TV station he states "at one point they were abel to get my arm behind me and handcuff me" clearly indicating he intentionally was resisting. This is also taking into fact he stated something about a knife when fighting with his roomate? I am curious if the officers responded to this call with the information of a knife being involved in the fight?

2. Having used a baton numerous times to stop a person from resisting and taking into consideration all the training police receive in the use of a baton they could of easily seriously hurt that suspect in the video in about 2 seconds flat if they wanted to. A strike to the boney hand/wrist area will immediately break bones in your hand stoping the fight on the spot or leaving the suspect one handed. That is one technique amoung numerous others to hurt someone if an officer wants to. What I see is strikes to the meaty part of the leg and back area to attempt to get compliance with the suspect. Obviously it worked in conjuntion with the taser and he was arrested with a few cuts and bruises. Obviously the media and the suspect try and make it appear as if the suspect was wallking his dog and four cops came out of the bushes and began beating him in an attempt to kill him for no good reason other than a case of mistaken identity.

3. In California there is a goverment code section that applies to police officers rights while under investigation and when disipline is applied. When the investigation is complete and if and (I mean a big if) in this case disipline is applied the officer are afforded what is called a "Skelly" hearing in front of the Chief of Police or his/her designee. Most often in these types of cases the Chief is directly invovled. Therefore if you render your opinion on national tv before the investigation is complete you have effectively removed yourself from the final step of redering punishment by being nutral. If the Chief (and they often do) diggs in and states he going to do it anyway against counsel adivse (make statements to the media like (we are all concerned after seeing the video) he is not a nutral party to hearing the officers pleas. These types of violations often occur and many times the courts dismiss the sentence or disipline given by the Chief for these reason or cadre of others. You can reasearch the PORAC site and you will find numerous cases overturned because Chiefs are political animals who step over legal rules that apply to them in order to appear "very tough on corruption" when in fact most Chiefs are really not police officers but pure administrators with polictal asperations.

4. There is nothing pretty about violence and especially when it is delivered by a police officer even when it is justified. However it is necessary and a matter of perserving our society so we may go about our daily lifes in a peaceful manner. In my 30 year career over 3,000 officers lost there lifes in the line of duty and hundred of thousands were injured often severely. We are willing to die for a perfect stranger and we often do. The best description of a police officer is in 2001 when we suffered a terrorist attack on our country. While hundreds of people ran away from and from within the burning towers knowing people were trapped inside our police officers and firefighters ran straight into the lions mouth. That is what a police officers is made of "rather than sway from my duties I will lay down my life".

So to all those whinny people out there who constantly berate the police why don't you call your mom next time someone is trying to kick down your door at 3am?

Sergeant (Ret) Jim Duncan

Reply to this comment


by Whydowe November 7, 2009 12:52 AM EST: 1)Perhaps his "resisting" arrest was just a normal reaction because he was trying to protect his body while being beaten?
2)Do you not admit that "some" police officers go overboard, or are abusive?
3)Do you not admit that there is a history of "some" police officers(who are only human after all, and humans do bad things)who are corrupt or unethical?
4)Were you there at the time? If not, then how do you know what truly happened?
5)Some of us berate "some" police officers because they DO do the wrong things "some" times. So, please don't criticize if and when we do so.