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Buena Park Police Chief Corey Sianez acknowledges he was disturbed by a security video showing an off-duty officer drawing a gun on a man thought to be stealing a roll of Mentos at a local service station.

Sianez, in a Facebook statement over the weekend, noted that the officer did not point the gun at the customer, Jose Arreola, who had actually paid $1.19 for the mints. Arreola disputed the chief’s account Monday.

“He pointed his gun at me, toward my hip,” said Arreola, a 49-year-old printer from Bellflower. “They’re just trying to make it seem that he didn’t do nothing wrong.”

Police officials would not comment further on the incident, however, the department’s policy states that only the amount of force that “reasonably appears necessary given the facts” should be used by officers. The department’s policy also generally discourages off-duty intervention in incidents involving minor property crimes.

Councilman Fred Smith said Monday that City Council members have viewed the video and “there’s not a one that liked it.”

“(The officer) is going to go through due process … this is not the kind of city we want or like to see,” Smith said.

Arreola had pocketed the Mentos while waiting for his change March 16 at a service station on Beach Boulevard in Buena Park when the officer pulled out his gun and ordered him to put back the candy.

A video of the encounter generated nationwide alarm after it was first published Friday on the Orange County Register website. Sianez linked to the Register’s article on the Buena Park Police Department’s Facebook page in what he called an “effort to be transparent.”

The officer, wearing black shorts and a hoodie, can be seen pulling back the slide on his handgun, loading a bullet into the chamber.

Amid the public uproar — made in Tweets, Facebook comments and emails to the Register — were demands that the officer be publicly identified and disciplined. Sianez said in the statement he could not comment further because of potential litigation by Arreola, who has hired a lawyer and filed a complaint, and a pending internal investigation by the Buena Park Police Department.

Legal experts said the public might not ever know who the officer is and what disciplinary steps are taken, if any. That’s because law enforcement officers in California have an extra layer of confidentiality commonly called the Police Officers Bill of Rights, which was signed into law in 1978.

“California is one of the most restrictive states in the nation when it comes to releasing confidential (police) information,” said James Chanin, a former ACLU attorney in Berkeley.

Legally, Chanin said, Sianez can disclose whether the complaint had been substantiated and what the department’s policy is for using deadly force, but little else.

In the video, the officer pulls the gun out for a few seconds, then he puts it back in his pocket, ordering Arreola to get his change and leave, without the mints. “Try stealing that again,” the officer tells Arreola.

He then twice asks the clerk if the victim paid for the Mentos. Twice, the clerk answers, “Yes.”

“My apologies,” the officer says. “My apologies.”

Responses on the police Facebook page are ardent and angry.

“You are investigating the officer to see if he violated your policies,” wrote Robert Low. “You mean bullying citizens at gunpoint for not stealing MAY be legal in your jurisdiction?”

Related Articles Watch: California cop pulls gun on shopper in Mentos misunderstanding “Are you serious?” wrote Meranda M. Chavira. “He ‘didn’t point his gun at the man,’ from what I’ve seen and plenty others have seen, yes, he DID point his gun at that man. And for what, a pack of Mentos? How does this require a gun to be drawn? If you can sit and try to justify this, you’re the problem.”

And Tino Gonzales wrote: “He could have easily shot this person when he pulled out the Mentos and then uttered your Code Blue motto, ‘I feared for my life!’ “