Sheriffs Gone Wild: Woman Punched in Face on Bus, Citizen Journalist Threatened
One day after Mayor Villaraigosa’s emotional interview that described the horrors of watching his mother get beaten, a YouTube video has surfaced showing an L.A. County Sheriff punching a woman in the face on board a Metro Bus. The officer did this knowingly in view of a man recording the incident on his camera phone and then proceeded to attempt to intimidate the man into handing over the phone.
The woman is still in custody, undergoing a psychiatric screening after witnesses claimed she behaved aggressively and escalated the incident by shoving the police. Witnesses also say that the woman had entered the bus a stop earlier and gave no signs of trouble before the Sheriffs entered the bus.
NBC L.A. has a full response by Sheriff Lee Baca. At this point, Metro has yet to release a statement and The Source hasn’t mentioned the incident. The officer’s conduct is under investigation. Streetsblog will stay on top of this story moving forward.
Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.