A police officer in Prince George’s County, Maryland is facing criminal charges for assaulting a 19-year-old man in February, and now the public knows why.

Video from the incident, filmed by a gas station’s security camera on February 3 but not released to the public until Monday, shows Cpl. Donald Taylor striking 19-year-old African-American male Ryan Dorm in the face with the butt of his handgun. The gun discharges in the man’s face right as the blow lands.

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The officer was charged in August with second-degree assault, making false statements, reckless endangerment and official misconduct after prosecutors finally obtained a copy of the video, according to ABC 7 in Maryland. Dorm spent months in jail after Taylor claimed he reached for his gun amid a struggle outside a gas station in Brentwood, which Dorm was accused of trying to rob.

Dorm and attorney Jimmy Bell have filed a $10 million lawsuit against the officer and the department. “What [the video] shows is that my client didn’t lie,” Bell told a reporter with NBC Washington. “They print my client is a criminal. They put his face on television saying he committed these crimes, and he didn’t.”

This video is from LiveLeak, published Monday, Sept. 3, 2012.



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Updated from a prior version to fix a technical error with the video.