Local News

SAN JOSE (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― San Jose police said Monday that four officers present at the beating of an unarmed Vietnamese student had been placed on leave.

A cell phone video that shows officers repeatedly hitting 20-year-old Phuong Ho  with batons and a Taser gun prompted a criminal investigation into the officers' conduct in the Sept. 3 incident, a police spokesman confirmed.

Officers Kenneth Siegel, Steven Payne Jr., Jerome Smith and Gabriel Reyes have been placed on paid leave during the probe, SJPD spokesman Ronnie Lopez said.

"We're conducting a criminal investigation ... in order to determine if the conduct was consistent with our department policies and procedures," Lopez said.

The video, which was posted online over the weekend, shows one officer hitting the with a metal baton more than 10 times, including once on the head. Another officer is seen using his Taser gun on the San Jose State math major.

The final baton strike in last month's incident appears to take place after handcuffs have been attached to Ho's wrists.

"It takes me back to the day I saw the Rodney King video on TV," said Roger Clark, a police expert and a retired lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

The last baton strike ought to bring a felony charge, Clark said.

Officers arrested Ho on suspicion of assaulting one of his roommates. He was not armed when police arrived and he said in an interview with CBS 5 that he didn't resist arrest.

The confrontation began when Ho's roommate, Jeremy Suftin, put soap on Ho's steak. The two scuffled, and Ho picked up a steak knife, saying that in his home country he would have killed Suftin for doing what he did.

Police were called, and four officers responded.

Officer Siegel encountered Ho in the hallway, but couldn't understand the student's accent, police reports said. Ho then ignored a police command to stand still, reports said.

When Ho tried to follow Siegel into his room, officer Steven Payne Jr. moved to handcuff Ho. Payne wrote in his report that he pushed the student into a wall and then forced him to the floor when he resisted being handcuffed.

Ho, who weighs more than 200 lbs., said his glasses fell off. As he went to pick them up, the officers struck him, he said.

"They said I was kicking, but my leg was shaking, because, like, four guys were hitting me with a baton. Well, any man would react that way," Ho told CBS 5.

Another one of Ho's roommates, Dimitri Masouris, captured the events on his cell phone. An officer can be heard on the video shouting, "Turn over!" Ho can be heard moaning and crying as he's struck.

"In philosophy, they call it 'dehumanization,'" Ho said in an interview. "So when they think me a dangerous guy, they don't treat me like I was human. They hit me like an animal or something."

Masouris said he considered the police response excessive. He sold the tape to San Jose lawyer Duyen Hoang Nguyen, who is representing Ho.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed expressed concern about the video.

"It does appear that more force was used than necessary," he said. "As mayor of San Jose, I am troubled by the contents of the video released. San Jose takes allegations of improper police actions seriously."

Reed indicated that the incident would be investigated by the internal affairs division of the San Jose Police Department and the results forwarded to the Santa Clara County district attorney for possible criminal prosecution.

"Both investigations must respect the constitutionally guaranteed right of due process, which belongs to all parties to an investigation," Reed wrote in a memo on Monday.

The city's large Vietnamese-American community was already angry over the police shooting of a mentally ill Vietnamese man in May and the lack of public disclosure in the investigation that followed.

The Vietnamese community is now expressing outrage over the level of force used against the student, with some leaders questioning whether their culture is being targeted by police.

"In fact we have a great amount of respect for our Vietnamese community and see them as being a great part of the social fabric of what makes San Jose a great place to live," San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis countered, denying that officers are targeting the Vietnamese community. "In addition to the fact that we have a number of Vietnamese officers who actually are a part of our department. If anything, we're trying to do more recruiting from within that community."

Police experts said the grainy, shaky video is difficult to view and may not show actions by Ho that justified the officers' response. Nevertheless, several said the video raises serious concerns.

"Once he is handcuffed, then he is helpless," said Frank Jordan, a former San Francisco police chief and mayor. "If you can show that his hands are behind his back, and he is handcuffed, that is where you get brutality. That would be excessive force."

Siegel and Payne didn't respond to written requests for comment sent through department officials and their union.
 
But Siegel's attorney, Terry Bowman, said the video leaves out details that would show why the officers acted as they did.

(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)