Brand New Video Shows Seattle Police Officer stomping on Black Man
/From [HERE] SEATTLE – New video has been released of alleged excessive force by a Seattle Police officer. It's the same undercover officer who is facing a criminal investigation for kicking a teenager in a convenience store last year. Both videos were recorded on Oct. 18, 2010.
The first video, which was released months ago, shows Officer James Lee kicking a 17-year-old suspect inside Joe's Mart during a drug raid in the Belltown neighborhood.
The new video, taken from a police car dash-cam, shows Officer Lee after he leaves the convenience store. Lee is seen standing over a different suspect. As two uniformed officers begin to put on handcuffs, Lee stomps on the suspect's head. The suspect is 20-year-old Darius Yearby, one of four young men arrested that night and charged with attempted robbery. Seattle NAACP President James Bible, who is representing Yearby as his attorney, would not comment on the video Thursday. He did mention it at a forum on police brutality held Tuesday night in Seattle.
"Another video will be coming out in which he (Lee) walks out of the store, walks up to a kid that was laying on the ground and smashes his head into the pavement," said Bible Tuesday.
Officer Lee, who has twelve years on the force, is now under criminal investigation by the Washington State Patrol, at the request of the Seattle Police Department. Lee has been reassigned during the investigation.
The new video was released by the King County Prosecutor's Office, after it was entered into evidence in King County Superior Court on Wednesday.