FBI Investigating After Denver Cops Punch Unarmed Suspect Six Times, Trip Pregnant Girlfriend, Delete Video of Incident

On August 14 undercover police in Denver targeted
suspected drug dealer David Flores for arrest. Flores allegedly put
a sock full of heroin in his mouth. Uniformed cops showed up to
help in the arrest and one of them punched Flores six times in an
effort to get him to spit the drugs out. When cops saw a bystander
recording the incident with his tablet, they seized it. When they
returned it to the bystander, Levi Frasier, the video was deleted,
but a few months later he realized the video had been uploaded to a
cloud.

He made the video available to Fox 31 in Denver, which did not
release it in its entirety because it shows undercover cops on
tape. Fox 31
reports on its contents:

The videotape shows [Officer Christopher] Evans holding down the
suspect’s legs. A burly undercover officer can be seen bear-hugging
Flores, lying on his side on the asphalt parking lot. Flores has
his hands pinned behind his back.

[Officer Charles] Jones can be heard yelling at Flores to, “Spit
the drugs out! Spit the drugs out!”

When Flores fails to open his mouth, Jones punches him with a
closed fist six times in the face.

The video shows the suspect’s head bouncing off the pavement as
a result of the force.

And then:

While Jones was punching Flores, the video captures the loud
sounds of a woman screaming in Spanish for police to stop.

A few seconds later, a visibly pregnant woman approaches the
area where the officers are on top of Flores. Jones reaches out and
sweeps her feet out from under her.

It appears on video, the woman, 25-year-old Mayra
Lazos-Guerrero, falls hard on her stomach and face.

Jones reported to a superior he thought the woman was going to
kick him.

Frasier disagrees with that and describes the punches he saw
thrown: “Those were the hardest punches I have ever heard. I’ve
seen some people get punched in the ring and on TV and whatnot, but
the sound of those resonating, I mean, it was scary. I’ve never
heard anything louder than that and I used to cage fight for quite
a while and I’ve never seen punches harder than that.”

The police department defended the cop’s decision to punch
Flores, saying he was trying to get the drugs out of his mouth,
prevent him from choking, and worried another officer was being
hurt because his arm was stuck under Flores.

The FBI is now
investigating the incident, including the deletion of Frasier’s
video.

h/t sarcasmic