Stockton, Calif., police are under scrutiny after a video posted to YouTube Wednesday showed a total of nine officers ganging up to arrest a black teenager for jaywalking, the International Business Times reports.
In the beginning, one officer approached the teen, presumably to write him a ticket for jaywalking to catch a city bus. The teen, however, continued walking to the bus, and the officer responded by grabbing the young boy and pulling out his baton.
Eyewitnesses told the Times that the officer hit the teen several times before backup came.
Video footage shows an officer restraining the teen. At one point the officer presses the baton against the teen's shin. The officer appears to hit the teen in the face, and the teen eventually seems to start crying. One woman observing the encounter can be heard shouting, “It’s a f—king kid! Get off of him! He’s been jaywalking! Leave him alone; he didn’t do anything wrong.”
The officer can be heard telling the kid, who is curled up in a ball, to “stop resisting.”
The teen eventually sits up and can be seen holding his face in his hands. Police backup arrives, and the officers wrestle the boy to the ground, while others circle to close off the area. In the end a total of nine officers were involved in detaining the teenager, who was handcuffed and taken to a police car.
Watch the video below:
Read more at the International Business Times.