Video: Deputy Punches Man During Traffic Stop, Leads to Excessive Force Claims

Sheriff's department says deputy didn't do anything wrong

An Orange County, California, sheriff’s deputy was captured on video punching a man he was trying to detain during a stop.

The man’s attorney said that the officer used excessive force, but the Orange County Sheriff’s Department disagrees.

The OC Register reported that the man, Mohamed Zahangir Sayem, was in a drunken haze and struggled to give deputies an answer when they asked him for his driver’s license. The deputy then allegedly pulled him out of the vehicle, where he was reportedly sleeping, and punched him until he fell.

“Are you going to shoot me?” asked Sayem, 33. “Like to,” said another deputy.

“He’s way taller than me, and he just comes up on me, essentially he almost hugs on me, so I just punched him in the face like probably like around three or four times,” Devitt is heard saying in the video, ABC7 reported.

Public Defender’s Claims

Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders alleged that Deputy Michael Devitt beat the allegedly drunken man in Stanton, California, and then reported that Sayem attacked him.

“The officer decided that despite having violently beaten Mr. Sayem without justification, the best response was to fabricate Mr. Sayem’s responsibility,” Sanders claimed. “The only people who should be charged in this case are those who wear uniforms every day. The district attorney should immediately dismiss the charges against Mr. Sayem.”

The sheriff’s department, in a statement on Oct. 18, said it disagrees with Sanders’s claims.

“A review of the full video indicates that the deputy made every attempt to de-escalate the situation and provide the subject multiple opportunities to simply provide his identification,” the department told the Los Angeles Times. The suspect refused to provide the ID, and then he “attempted to physically engage the deputy, during which the deputy used force appropriate for the situation,” said the department.

Carrie Braun, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department, told the OC Register: “The subject refused to do so and attempted to physically engage the deputy, during which the deputy used force appropriate for the situation to gain control of an uncooperative, assaultive and intoxicated person.” She continued: “Any assertion otherwise substantially misrepresents the facts, and serves only to swell an anti-law enforcement narrative.”

Devitt wrote in his official report, which was approved by his superior, that Sayem got out of the car and grabbed his vest. “Due to his aggressive demeanor … I believed Sayem was going to continue to try and physically assault me,” Devitt said, according to the Register.

Sanders wrote, “It reads like an unforgettable fear-inspiring moment for an officer left with no option but to use defensive violence. However, Devitt was lying.”

Sanders also said that the other officer’s “like to” comment was left out of the police report.