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.
