Federal authorities are investigating body camera footage from August that shows two white police officers Tasering and beating a black man whom they accused of jaywalking in Asheville, N.C.
The footage, obtained by The Citizen Times, has created an uproar in town. One of the officers has resigned, and the police chief has offered to follow suit.
“The city is in outrage,” Councilwoman Sheneika Smith said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Facebook was flaming. It was on fire.”
The beginning of the video, which was taken last year, shows Johnnie Jermaine Rush being approached by Verino Ruggiero, an officer in training, shortly after midnight on Aug. 25 at a street corner near a baseball stadium in Asheville, about 120 miles west of Charlotte.
Outrage Over Footage of Police Officer Beating a Black Man in North Carolina
Most of the facts have already been examined. The guilty officer, for a wonder, resigned. I fully expected to read that he feared for his life. Not this time.