There’s a very fine line between deserving an ass kicking, and actually getting one.

It’s a balancing act police officers deal with every day — the point when necessary physical restraint turns into excessive force, and it requires extreme professionalism to keep temper from tainting an altercation.

For two bouncers at a Beltline bar, a graphic video taken by witnesses has them claiming the doormen went too far, and in leaving a bar customer bloody and bruised, that the doormen overstepped their professional duty and ended up assaulting a patron in anger.

“The video doesn’t show how vicious it actually was — it was horrible, it was savage,” said Rocky Kandola, who can be seen in the video, asking the bouncers to stop.

“He wasn’t fighting back at all — when we first saw what was happening, he was already subdued. They had his hands in the air, and he was pushed back against a fence. After that, once guy held his hands and the other started throwing punches right to his face.”

The video, taken by one of Kandola’s cousins from a car across the street around midnight Sunday, certainly looks bad for the bouncers.

In it, a man can be seen pinned helplessly to the sidewalk by the two doormen, who each throw punches at his head, causing it to bounce off the sidewalk.

It’s sickening to watch, and the accompanying photograph of the bar patron, which Kandola says was taken after the altercation, shows a man with his face completely masked in blood.

Of course, there’s another side to the beating.

In Calgary at least, bouncers don’t typically get physical without some provocation, and according to the owner of Jamesons Irish Pub, the bloodied customer started it all.

After first harassing female customers, the man sucker punched one of the doormen, and was then ejected from the bar, says Steve Marakis, who owns the pub.

“He was trying to start fights, he was harassing customers, so he was asked to leave,” said Marakis.

“His friends were outside and they tried to restrain him, because he kept trying to fight — then he rushed a doorman and started punching him.”

Marakis said the man was restrained by his friends, but he continued to utter threats, saying he planned to come back, and that he planned to hurt the bouncers — a knife being mentioned at some point, along with a threat to stab the doorman.

“These were dangerous threats and I fault my own guys for not phoning police at that instant, because that’s what they should have done,” said Marakis, who says his door staff are trained and certified.

Really, they should have — but then, bouncers probably listen to the same sort of alcohol-fueled belligerence a dozen times per shift, and nothing ever comes of it.

In this case. and Marakis says video cameras in the bar captured the whole violent episode, the customer returned about a half hour later and immediately attacked the nearest doorman.

“He rushes one of the doormen and he starts punching him and pins him against the railing — and that’s roughly when the people driving by showed up and started shooting the video,” said Marakis.

“They only captured the tail end of it. This was self defence.”

If Marakis and his staff are correct, the customer was a violent jerk who provoked staff and attacked the doormen — just the kind of guy that ruins a good time for everyone else, and makes life a misery for those working in the service industry.

But the video clearly shows two men beating a person who appears helpless — leading to the question of what point justifiable force crosses the line to assault.

Calgary’s police are so far on the side of the bouncers, saying a full review of Jamesons security video backs up their story of a customer looking for trouble — and the say if any charges are laid, they will likely be against the customer, rather than the doormen.

But those who witnessed the beating say whatever caused it, the consequences went way too far.

“The guy was helpless,” said Kandola.

michael.platt@sunmedia.ca