Prosecutors in the Bronx on Wednesday dropped several criminal charges against a 19-year-old man whose beating at the hands of police officers in January was described as “troubling” by New York’s police commissioner.

The move by the office of the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson , means that a civil lawsuit expected to be filed against the Police Department on behalf of the teenager, Jateik Reed, can move forward, according to Mr. Reed’s lawyers. A notice of claim in that matter would be filed within weeks, the lawyers said.

According to a statement released by the district attorney’s office, “We were unable to meet our burden of proof at trial, therefore we moved to dismiss the charges.”

One of Mr. Reed’s lawyers, Gideon O. Oliver, was told of prosecutors’ intention to clear Mr. Reed at a court appearance on Wednesday morning. Mr. Reed had been facing seven charges, including assault, drug possession and harassment, related to the encounter with the police.

A Criminal Court judge, Seth L. Marvin, granted the district attorney’s motion to dismiss the charges; Mr. Reed still faces charges stemming from an accusation that he robbed someone of a cellphone on Jan. 20, Mr. Oliver said. He added that his client was due in court to face those charges — brought a day after he was beaten by the officers — in April.

Mr. Reed was stopped on Jan. 26 as he walked with two friends along East 168th Street and Third Avenue, in the Bronx, where he had been living at the time. He was thrown to the ground, handcuffed and taken away by uniformed officers assigned to the 42nd Precinct.

The encounter was captured on a cellphone video recording and posted on the Internet; it was widely redistributed and viewed. Mr. Reed needed staples to close a gash in his head and stitches in his left elbow, his lawyers said. After about a week in jail, Mr. Reed was released on $10,000 bail that someone posted anonymously.

Shortly after the episode, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly , said the videos posted online were troubling and that the Internal Affairs Bureau had begun an inquiry. Four officers who were apparently involved in the encounter were placed on modified assignment and stripped of their guns and badges, officials said at the time.

Mr. Reed’s lawyers, relatives and others have also called on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the state attorney general’s office to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the episode. No state official has yet responded, said Michael W. Warren, another of Mr. Reed’s lawyers.

The police did not immediately respond on Wednesday to requests for comment about the dismissal of the charges.

Mr. Warren said the robbery charge stemming from the Jan. 20 case “smells of an attempt to legitimize the unwarranted beating of Mr. Reed and the arrest involved with the beating that occurred on Jan. 26.” Mr. Warren said Mr. Reed was “totally innocent” of any wrongdoing in the cellphone case.

Mr. Warren said that the officers had no basis to stop Mr. Reed on the street, and that the complaint they swore against him — in which they claimed Mr. Reed had been carrying marijuana and cocaine — was fabricated to justify the stop. He said he believed that Bronx prosecutors, who have videotape and building surveillance footage, should pursue a perjury case against the officers.

“Hopefully these cops will be disciplined,” he said.

Mr. Johnson’s office, in its statement, said, “We stand ready to pursue the allegation of excessive force, but for one reason or another Mr. Reed and his attorneys have chosen not to speak with us, and in order to go further we require more than just the videotape.”