Texas Police Under Investigation For Seizing Phone and Pepper Spraying Innocent Bystander

A second incident of inappropriate police behavior has sparked an investigation as a police officer in Austin is being investigated for seizing a phone and pepper spraying an innocent bystander who was recording their behavior.

Video:

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NBC News reported:

According to the man who took the video, this incident happened at approximately 1:30 a.m. ET Sunday on 6th Street in Austin, Texas. The witness told NBC News said he saw a lone police officer push through the crowd and tackle a single person. In the video’s caption, the poster had said the person who was tackled looked “a little young to be drinking.”

After that person was arrested, “police pushed all back and started kicking people too close. Pepper spray/deterrent was used on bystander who was filming the incident, doing nothing,” the witness told NBC New

A police officer on horseback seized the bystander’s phone and threw it on the ground, as another officer pepper sprayed the individual.

This incident comes on the heels of a police officer in Dallas being suspended for pulling a gun on innocent and unarmed teenager at a pool party.

Video of Dallas incident:

What happened in Dallas was especially brutal with the police rolling in and throwing unarmed teens to the ground and handcuffing them. Remember, that this violence was in response to a teenage pool party. The teenagers were not armed. A young girl can be seen in the video above being thrown to the ground by an officer who kept her face down on the ground by pressing his knee into her back. The Dallas area cop was suspended for pulling his gun on the teens, which leads one to assume that all of the other unnecessary acts of violence were deemed appropriate.

The uploader of the YouTube video, Brandon Brooks, told Buzzfeed, “I think a bunch of white parents were angry that a bunch of black kids who don’t live in the neighborhood were in the pool. Everyone who was getting put on the ground was black, Mexican, Arabic,” he said. “[The cop] didn’t even look at me. It was kind of like I was invisible.”

It should be noted that all of the kids arrested in the video were African-American or Hispanic.

White Republicans say that they don’t understand why young people run from the police. The videos above demonstrate exactly why young people of color do and should fear the cops. The police in some jurisdictions are out of control, and if you try to catch their misconduct on video with your phone be prepared to have your phone seized and be pepper sprayed.

It is time for all Americans to wake up and realize that the United States has a police brutality problem.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association