A Greensboro, N.C., police officer was stripped of his law-enforcement credentials last week via a vote by City Council members after body-camera footage of an arrest he made was made public, the Huffington Post reports.
According to the report, the council voted unanimously Sept. 26 to permanently sanction Police Officer Travis Cole for his use of excessive force in the June arrest of Dejuan Yourse, who was sitting on his front porch waiting on his mother to let him into the house.
Body-camera footage shows Cole roughly taking Yourse to the ground and punching him, even as Yourse screams, "I am not resisting!"
However, despite the council’s push for criminal charges against Cole, the district attorney refused to bring charges, saying that he would not "rehash the same evidence," the Greensboro News & Record reports.
“There’s nothing new in there?” Chief Assistant District Attorney Howard Neumann said that he and District Attorney Doug Henderson asked. “You want us to rehash the same evidence? We’re not going to do that.”
The body-camera footage from Cole and another responding officer show them encountering Yourse after being dispatched to investigate a possible break-in back in June.
The encounter begins civilly, with Yourse explaining that the house was his mother's, giving both officers his mother's name as well as his. Yourse attempts to phone his mother, but she does not pick up the call.
When officers ask for ID, he provides his, which lists the address as his residence. When Yourse suggests that they go over to a neighbor's house to verify that he lives in the home, the situation starts to become tense. Cole puts his hands on Yourse's chest to stop him from walking away.
Yourse then phones someone, asking the person to come over because "the police is over here and they harassing me."
Editor's note: Video contains graphic footage and language.
In the video, Cole snatches Yourse's phone away and then throws him to the floor, struggling to handcuff him.
Cole can be heard yelling on camera, saying, "I am going to hit you again."
"Why?" Yourse responds.
"You were resisting the whole time," Cole shouts.
"I'm not resisting. I'm not resisting!" Yourse screams.
Yourse was charged with resisting arrest and assault on government officials, the Huffington Post notes, but the charges were dropped after Cole resigned in August. The second officer involved in the arrest, C.N. Jackson, quit her job Wednesday.
Read more at the Huffington Post and the Greensboro News & Record.