SPRINGFIELD -- It's an increasingly common scenario: a bystander with a smartphone captures a clash between police and a suspect. The context is at times unclear, even if the visuals seem disturbing.

Is it police brutality? Is it a product of earnest police work sullied by bad optics?

Since the Rodney King arrest in Los Angeles in 1991 -- when amateur videos were anomalies -- the technical landscape has changed considerably. Former Springfield police officer Jeffrey Asher was sentenced to 18 months in jail in 2012 for thrashing a motorist with a flashlight -- an incident caught on video shot by a witness.

Now, a four-minute, 23-second video of a 2015 arrest shot by a resident of Belmont Avenue in Springfield is central to a federal lawsuit filed earlier this week against more than 20 officers and Police Commissioner John R. Barbieri.

The complaint, filed by plaintiff Adalberto Bernal, alleges police brutality during his arrest on May 23, 2015. He was charged with resisting arrest, assault and battery on police, threatening to commit a crime and failure to produce identification, according to court records. Those charges are pending.

Bernal is the most recent federal court plaintiff to take aim at a police department assailed by widespread allegations of excessive force. The department also is under scrutiny by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the subject of federal and state grand juries.

Bernal's complaint names officers Christopher Collins, David Suchcicki and John Wadjula; 20 "John Doe" officers who were at the scene; and Barbieri as a supervisor.

Police stopped Bernal's vehicle, according to his complaint, because they believed it matched the description of a vehicle involved in a drive-by shooting.

More than a dozen officers ended up at the scene, and a witness began shooting video -- filed as an exhibit to accompany the lawsuit -- as police demanded he produce his license and registration.

It is unclear how much time elapsed between the initial stop and the beginning of the video.

"Step out of the car!" one officer can be heard saying.

"This is going to get live right now," the unidentified man recording the video says.

Over the next two minutes, the clutch of officers who surrounded Bernal's car are heard demanding he identify himself and exit the vehicle.

"Roll the window down, shut the car off," one officer shouts.

"You understand, you're under arrest now. You're under arrest," another says.

Still another adds: "You need to identify yourself."

Bernal eventually creaks the car window down an inch and slips out his license and registration, which land on the pavement.

"Put your hands on the f---ing dashboard," an officer yells.

The officers appear to ignore the documents they have demanded.

Bernal remains in his vehicle. An officer warns that they plan to break the car window.

Just over a minute later, an officer says: "Move your face. Move your face," before smashing the driver's-side glass.

Officers drag Bernal out of the car and converge upon him. Bystanders can be heard objecting in the distance as the man shooting the video says officers appear to be hitting Bernal with a flashlight.

Bernal was treated for head lacerations and bodily injuries at Baystate Medical Center following the confrontation, according to the suit.

According to Bernal's complaint, a late model, black BMW was identified in a police "look out" after a drive-by shooting that night. There was no identification of a specific suspect, court records state, and Bernal was not charged in connection with the shooting.

Recently retired West Springfield Police Chief Ronald Campurciani said he believes officers had probable cause to surround Bernal's vehicle based on their suspicion it was involved in a drive-by shooting.

Campurciani, who agreed to speak as an experienced law enforcement official with no connection to Bernal's case, based his comments on a reporter's description of the video.

"There's a couple of things going on there. Once you've blocked a car in, you've effectively made a 'seizure.' If they believe a car has been involved in a drive-by, I believe they have probable cause to make that seizure. I think they did everything right," Campurciani said.

But police occasionally overshoot, he added.

While police were within their rights to do a "pat-frisk" of the suspect or sweep a car for weapons under that scenario, Campurciani said, the officers may have unnecessarily complicated matters by mixing procedures for a stop of a potentially violent suspect with procedures for a standard traffic stop.

"They muddied the waters by morphing back into a traffic stop, which they didn't need to do," he said. "Police officers often make mistakes by doing things they don't really need to do."

Campurciani added that while drivers are entitled to ask why they are being pulled over, they are obligated to hand over their identification.

Bernal's suit claims he repeatedly asked the officers first tell him the reason he was being pulled over before giving them his identification.

Bill Newman, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Western Massachusetts, agreed that drivers are obligated to produce identification to police upon demand. But, the question as to whether the stop was legally justified depends on several factors.

"How long after the drive-by was the vehicle stopped? Two minutes? A half-hour? And how far away did it occur? The same street? A mile away? They can only forcibly order him out of the car if they have a reasonable apprehension of danger," said Newman -- who, like Campurciani, had not yet seen the video.

State law sets the punishment for a driver who refuses to give an officer his or her license and registration at a fine of $100.