[VIDEO LINK BELOW] A man believed to be mentally ill was beaten repeatedly with a baton by a New Jersey cop – and the entire incident was caught on tape, according to The Bergen Record.
Passaic police are now investigating Joseph Rios III for use of excessive force. The surveillance video, captured by a camera outside Lawrence’s Restaurant, clearly depicts 49-year-old Ronnie Holloway standing at a crosswalk as a squad car pulls up. Then Rios slams Holloway to the pavement and proceeds to punch him and hit him with his baton as he lies prone on the street corner. Rios continues to beat the man, throwing him against the patrol car and down to the street, until other offices arrive at the scene.
Holloway, whose mother says he suffers from schizophrenia, claims he did nothing to incite the attack; the surveillance video does not appear to show him resisting the officer’s blows. Holloway claims he was complying with the officer’s request to zip up his sweatshirt – he had been bare-chested – when the attack ensued, according to The Record.
“That’s when he grabbed me and slung me on the car,” he told the paper. “He had his hands on my collar.”
Holloway was arrested in the May 29 incident and charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and wandering with the intent to purchase drugs. He filed an Internal Affairs complaint and demanded a complete investigation by county prosecutors, according to the paper.
Cops had nothing to say about the incident other than that it was under investigation. Rios, a 7-year veteran of the force, remains on active duty.
Protestors held a rally in the city Saturday against police brutality. More than 100 people showed up, including Holloway, many of them bearing signs that read “Stop the madness,” “No justice no peace” and “Fire Rios.”
VIDEO LINK: Click HERE to watch the video.
(Source: NBC New York)
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7 Responses
OH MY GOSH! Is this the United States of America?!
This is not to be believed.
Sickos
why is this important to know? Does YWN have an Editoral Board?
I think the fact that it is on fast forward hides the fact that the guy wasn’t cooperating. It looks to me like he refused to go down and turn opver meaning the officer was technically in danger the whole time.
If you watch the video a couple of times you can see clearly the man did nothing wrong except refuse to succumb to a violent cop. The Cop was determined to have this man lie down on the floor and curl up into a ball in submission. When the man held onto his rights of not displaying total fear and submission to the Nazi like officer, the Cop couldn’t take it and kept beating him.
This Cop AND the partner Cop should be taken off the force and punished. There is no room for such power hungry, out of control people besmirching the good name of police officers everywhere.
Besides the cop obviously is fat & out of shape and has no basic hand to hand combat skills that every police officer should have. There should have been no trouble getting a hold of a 49 year old man like that in 2 seconds without the need for baton sticks and all.
Hevu zhirin b’rshus. Positions of authority & power often lead to a mad power struggle in people’s minds that bring out the worst of them. Many, many principals in our children s schools suffer the same psychological authority issues and abuse our children in similar fashions (not physically but in other ways).
Why?! Because there are many of us living there as well!! If these thugs can get away with it, what will prevent them from doing this in the future to one of us?! So hard to figure out, Heh?!!
LOOKS LIKE #3 IS STILL IN Sof Maarav THE WILD WILD WEST !!
HE CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS IS NEWS.
RABBOISAI, DO YOU REALIZE THERE ARE ‘HIDDEN CAMERAS’ ALL OVER THE WORLD. WE CAN NOT HIDE FROM THEM. HASHEM SEES IT ALL, KOL MASECHA B’SEFER NICHTAVIM. IT’S ALL RECORDED!!