TIJUANA A video has surfaced apparently showing a municipal police officer beating a suspect handcuffed in the back of patrol pickup as three others watch.
City Attorney Yolanda Enríquez announced Tuesday that the four officers were being investigated for apparent use of excessive force against a detainee.
This is the third investigation of abuse in 12 months in a department that is supposed to have been nearly 80 per cent cleared of corruption.
In the new case, a video shows an officer repeatedly hitting a detained man who was handcuffed in the bed of a patrol pickup as two officers stand next to him. The video captured the sound the agent made as he delivered the blows. Toward the end of the video a fourth agent approaches the patrol vehicle.
The faces of the four agents can't be seen clearly because the video was taken from so far away, apparently by a cell phone camera, but the patrol car's number, P-4972, is visible.
The incident occurred on Jan. 16 of 2011, though it is not clear why it is now coming to light. The video was turned over to the police department anonymously.
Enríquez said her office has already requested information from the department's internal affairs unit about the agents involved.
This is the third case high-profile case of police abuse being investigated during the current administration of Mayor Carlos Bustamante.
The so-called "Presagate" incident came to light after a video surfaced that shows a detained woman being pressured to strip to music to gain her freedom by officers at the Presa Rural substation. Fifteen officers, including a deputy commander, were suspended pending the outcome of an investigation.
And in December, a woman filed a complaint alleging that she had been humiliated by two municipal police agents and forced to strip by a female guard while serving a 10-hour sentence for a minor infraction.
The city attorney announced that the three public servants had been suspended indefinitely in the case because "it had been proven that they participated in actions contrary to their duties."
Since the Bustamante administration begin on Nov. 30, 2010, some 195 municipal police officers have been suspended while under investigation, 18 of them accused of participating in organized crime. A total of 37 of those have been subsequently fired.
The suspensions came during the program the police department is carrying out to weed out corruption, according to spokesman Julián Domínguez.
He said of those suspended, 106 for a variety of offenses, 38 for abuse of authority, 11 for extortion, 18 for participating in organized crime, two for sexual abuse, 11 testing positive in drug tests and the rest for improper duties.
In the previous administration of Mayor Jorge Ramos (2007-2010), nearly 600 municipal police officers were fired as part of the unprecedented progam to "cleanse" the department of corruption using a variety of tests and evaluations.
omar.millan@sandiegored.com
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