White Stamford Cop Goes too Far in Arrest at Carryout - Attacks Unarmed Latino Man
/From [HERE] A police officer from Stamford, Connecticut is under fire for a controversial arrest. The suspect is charged with resisting arrest and marijuana possession but the officer is now accused of going too far while trying to take him into custody, and it was all caught on camera. It was on Tuesday afternoon at China Express on Selleck street in Stamford that off-duty police officer James Comstock was talking to employees to investigate a robbery in the parking lot.
But when he was there he sees 20-year-old justin medina who was issued a warrant back on July 9th. On Tuesday, police say, Officer Comstock pulled 12 bags of marijuana from Medina's pockets along with $200, and because he was off-duty, and without handcuffs or a radio, he was trying and struggling, to make the felony drug arrest. He discovered the marijuana pursuant to a search done - after he had beat the Latino man down and pulled a gun on him.
"It's just a constant wrestling match, he's trying to get out and he's trying to flee," said Tim Shaw with Stamford Police. No it's not. On the video you never see medina actually flee, in fact, in some shots, his hands are in the air. "He was outrageous, the behavior was outrageous, he knows my client's mother for years," said Median's attorney, Darnell Crosland.
In fact, Medina's mother says her daughter used to work for the cop as a babysitter.
Medina's friend, McKeil Mitchell also appears in the video because police say Mitchell had gone into the restaurant to move the evidence, making the officer's job that much harder.
"If there's a warrant for a person, and they resist and the resist for a 5 minute fight and that officer is getting exhausted, I'd be worried if he didn't take his gun out, what would have happened," adds Shaw.
But medina's family insists, it never should have come to this.