From [HERE] A former San Juan County sheriff's deputy has been sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to violating the civil rights of an American Indian suspect he beat with a flashlight. The assault raised concerns about the treatment of American Indians by police in towns that border the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation, tribal officials said. Dale Frazier will be on probation for three to five years after Wednesday's plea in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque. He could have received up to 10 years in prison.

The Farmington Daily Times reports (http://bit.ly/VqScCr ) the 57-year-old was captured on his patrol car's video camera striking Donovan Tanner with a flashlight in March 2011.  He had detained Tanner and his brother as they walked away from a Farmington brewery where they had argued with a group of men.

The video released by the sheriff's office after the incident shows Frazier ordering Tanner, now 24, and his brother to stand near Frazier's patrol car and answer questions about the argument.

Frazier can be seen pinning Tanner to the hood of his car. He first uses the metal flashlight to choke Tanner and then starts forcefully hitting him in the head, neck and body. Frazier continued hitting him after he fell to the ground, while a Farmington police officer and another sheriff's deputy watched.

Tanner was arrested and charged with disarming a police officer, but the charges were later dismissed. Tanner filed a lawsuit against the county and settled for $250,000, said his lawyer, Arlon Stoker.

The executive director of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, Leonard Gorman, said the video heightened concerns among American Indians about police treatment.

"As my office sees it, Navajo Nation residents are very concerned about law enforcement in all border towns," Gorman told the Daily Times. "There is a very strong need for recognizing that these incidents do exist and that there is a need to make deliberate and strategic efforts to address these kinds of incidents."

Tanner "is pleased with a resolution," Stoker said. "He just didn't want this to happen to someone else."

Frazier was placed on paid administrative after the incident and fired about a month later. He had been a deputy since June 2006.

Frazier was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2012 on a charge of unlawfully assaulting a man with a dangerous weapon, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

"The public places great trust in law enforcement officers to use their authority in the right way and only the right way," U.S. Attorney Kenneth Gonzales said in a prepared statement after the plea. "When they intentionally abuse that authority, they will be held accountable. Today, by pleading guilty to a federal felony offense, Dale Frazier was held accountable for seriously violating a young man's rights."

"To me, there is a strong indication from the video that Deputy Frazier immediately suspects the Native American is at fault," said NNHRC Director Leonard Gorman in a press release.

Gorman added that the commission has heard testimony from various Navajo people regarding ill police treatment in Farmington.

"This incident gives more credence to these complaints and the testimonies about mistreatment of law enforcement in the Farmington area," he said. [MORE]