Peach State Police Officer Canned After Punching Prone Perp on Video

In America today, one of the most prominent cultural conversations that exists is on the subject of law enforcement and their treatment of people of color.

And with good reason.  Sure, a majority of police officers here in the United States are law-abiding, just enforcers of the law, but when things go wrong, they go very wrong.  With video recording devices now ubiquitous throughout the nation, there is no hiding these offenses either.

One police officer in Georgia is learning his lesson the hard way this week after being caught on tape punching an alleged perpetrator in the head after he was already pinned to the ground in the prone position.

The deputy was being let go for “excessive use of force,” the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. It did not identify the deputy, but said a criminal investigation has been turned over to the district attorney’s office.

Roderick Walker, 26, was arrested and beaten after Clayton County sheriff’s deputies pulled over the vehicle he was riding in Friday with his girlfriend, their 5-month-old child and his stepson for an alleged broken taillight, his attorney, Shean Williams of The Cochran Firm in Atlanta said Sunday. The deputies asked for Walker’s identification and got upset and demanded he get out of the vehicle when he questioned why they needed it since he wasn’t driving, Williams said.

The subsequent arrest, captured on video by a bystander and shared widely, shows two deputies on top of Walker, one of whom repeatedly punches him. Walker’s girlfriend screams and tells the deputies Walker said he can’t breathe. A child in the vehicle yells, “Daddy.”

The video below may be disturbing to some.

Clayton GA deputies pulled over a Lyft driver, but then beat the Black PASSENGER. Officers pressed his face on the PAVEMENT & punched him repeatedly because he didn't have his ID. Unbelievable… ANOTHER Black man saying “I can’t breathe” while being ASPHYXIATED by police!! pic.twitter.com/WGCs5wEqzx

— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) September 12, 2020

The officer told bystanders that he had been bitten by the suspect, but that did not appear to affect his employer’s opinion on the matter.