The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has opened an investigation after “disturbing” body camera footage showed an officer threatening to punch a woman in the face and then throw her to the ground during an arrest for an alleged robbery at a grocery.
The department released two videos Wednesday following a Press conference to address the June 24 incident at a Lancaster grocery store. The two deputies involved have been reassigned from field duty pending further investigation, a spokesman said. Their names have not been released.
The department called the videos “disturbing.” The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Professional Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Video shows an officer arriving on the scene and yelling at a man to put his hands on the hood of the car, but the man refuses, saying he did nothing wrong. Instead, the deputy tells the man to sit down, and the man complies.
As the man tries to explain what happened in the store, the two officers handcuff him. At one point in the video, the officer roughly places the man on the ground.
“Why are you doing this to me, man? We haven’t even done anything,” the man says.
The second video shows that the woman was filming the man’s arrest. The second officer reaches for her cell phone, grabs it, and throws it to the ground. The officer yells various commands at the woman, telling her to get down even though she is already on the concrete. In the video, the deputy is heard telling the woman that he would hit her.
“Stop or you’re going to get punched in the face,” he says.
“Hit me and they’ll sue you too,” the woman replies.
The man, who refers to the woman as his wife, tells the deputies that she has cancer.
Video shows the officer pepper spraying the woman in the face before handcuffing her. The woman suffered abrasions in her arms and she was treated at a hospital.
Sheriff Robert Luna said the two deputies were responding to an alleged grocery store robbery involving the man and woman, whom he did not name. He said the woman had been involved in a “theft altercation” with store employees and loss prevention security.
“Upon arrival, officers approached a male and female matching the description given by store security personnel on calls made to 911,” the agency said in a news release.
“When officers attempted to detain the individuals described by store security personnel, the encounter escalated into a use-of-force incident that was captured by a community member on cell phone camera,” he said. the agency.
The woman was arrested and cited for assaulting an officer and battery after assaulting loss prevention personnel, according to the sheriff. The man was arrested and cited for delaying an officer, attempted petty theft and interfering with a business, Luna said. It is not clear if they have obtained lawyers.
The sheriff’s office’s investigation into the incident will include review of body camera video, store surveillance video and cell phone video provided by a community member.
