A Hesperia father is alleging a San Bernardino County deputy assaulted his 14-year-old son during a school investigation, scenes of which were captured on video and have now surfaced on the internet. The incident, reported by both FOX 11 and CBS News, took place at Pathways to College after deputies received a call about a possible gun on campus.
Following the tip, deputies arrived on the scene where the video, obtained from an onlooker's cell phone, shows the deputy lifting the teenager from the ground, throwing him down and proceeding to punch him multiple times in the head while he was on the ground, although officials later confirmed that no gun was found. The Sheriff's Department said that the deputy had mistaken the boy's actions for resistance, and they arrested the boy claiming he had assaulted the deputy. Tduring the search a knife was found on another teen, which led to citations for him and his parents.
"You could clearly see that a line [was] crossed. There [are] four to five hits to the face, a punch to the gut," stating Brandon Mata, the family's attorney in an interview with FOX 11, describing the video footage. The father, Thomas, expressed his outrage saying that his son had already been searched and was known to be unarmed when the deputy initiated the violent confrontation. "The officer already knew he didn't have a weapon because he had already searched him," he lamented, confused about why his son remains in custody without formal charges.
In response to inquiries, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department released a statement reiterating that the 14-year-old was arrested for resisting an officer, maintaining the deputy's actions were in response to the teen's alleged assault on the deputy. However, the department has declined to comment further on the case as of yet, insisting in their statement, active investigations preclude them from disclosing additional details at this moment in time.
