SALT LAKE CITY — Some prosecutors apparently knew about a body-camera video that appears to show a former Salt Lake police officer punching a woman who spit on him.

But word of that incident was apparently never passed on to the city's top brass, including some who called the video "horrible" and "disturbing" on Wednesday.

Now, current and former city and police administrators are wondering why they weren't told about it and why the procedures designed to address allegations of police brutality failed.

As the Deseret News first reported Tuesday, a video was posted on YouTube this week by the family of Michelle Siguenza Anderson, 43, of Salt Lake City, showing Anderson's arrest on Oct. 13, 2014. The arrest was recorded on the body camera worn by Salt Lake police officer Tyler Reinwand, who retired last year after serving 20 years.

(Warning: This video contains disturbing content, including strong, objectionable language and violence.)

Police were called to Anderson's apartment after a neighbor heard screaming and crying. A second neighbor called to say that "Anderson was drinking too much and trying to fight with a neighbor," charging documents state.

When police arrived, Anderson's young daughter was crying and "appeared to be afraid and ran toward" the officers, the charges state.

"As the officers attempted to speak to Anderson they could not get rational responses from her. She made childish faces at officer Reinwand and told him she hated him. The officers were aware of previous instances with Anderson," according to the charges.

The officers waited outside with the young girl for a family member to arrive to pick her up. The video starts with Anderson being arrested outside her apartment. When asked why she's being arrested, an officer can be heard saying, "Remember the warning I gave you?" referring to her going outside and "harassing" people.

A few moments later, the woman appears to be punched or violently pushed to the ground by Reinwand after apparently spitting on the officer's face. The officer can be heard angrily berating the woman while she's on the ground and uses several vulgar terms.

According to charging documents: "Anderson came running up to the officers yelling at them. Anderson was intoxicated and had a strong odor of alcohol on her breath. The officers told her she was under arrest and placed her in handcuffs. At which point she turned and spat in officer Reinwand’s face. Anderson was known to officers from prior encounters."

Anderson was charged with propelling a substance at an officer, a class A misdemeanor, and intoxication, a class C misdemeanor.

But on March 17, 2015, the case was dismissed at the request of city prosecutors when the body-camera footage came to light, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill confirmed Wednesday.

After attorneys prosecuting the case became aware of the video, that information should have been passed along to the Salt Lake City prosecutor, according to Gill, who was not over the Salt Lake City Prosecutor's Office at the time but is now.

"But somewhere along the line either that didn't happen or it did happen and I don't have the answer to that. But what I do know is that is something that wouldn't happen in our administration," he said. "This needed to get back to law enforcement and it didn't get there. How that was not caught before, that's, of course, a concern."

Investigations planned

Gill said he was "disturbed" by what he saw on the video and plans to launch a use-of-force investigation into the incident.

Likewise, Salt Lake Police Chief Mike Brown questioned why he was just now learning about the video.

"I wish we were talking about this two years ago," he said. "I'm really concerned we didn't know about this earlier."

Brown said his department will launch an investigation to find out who knew about the incident, when they knew about it and why nothing was reported. The second officer who was present during the arrest that night still works for the department.

Every arrest that officers make is reviewed by a sergeant, he said.

"I think our review process failed us that night," the chief said. "If it's that bad today, why wasn't it that bad two years ago?"

Brown said Wednesday that he also wants to come up with a system within the department to randomly audit or check the body-camera video from officers as a form of checks and balances.

"There's got to be some way we can review this," he said.

There are currently 340 officers wearing body cameras for the department, Brown said, and 440 gigabytes of video are downloaded each week to a central storage unit. It's impossible for administrators to watch every second of every video, he noted.

'No excuse'

Former Salt Lake Police Chief Chris Burbank, who was in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, said he saw the video for the first time after being contacted by the Deseret News. He, too, said he had no prior knowledge of the incident.

"That's the first I've heard of it. This is never something that came to light. We would have dealt with it appropriately then," he said, calling the video "horrible."

"You can't just spit on police officers. But the response to that is not to punch the woman. There's no excuse for that behavior, whatsoever," he said.

Burbank couldn't tell from the video whether Anderson was knocked to the ground or outright punched. But, like Brown, he said a supervisor should have reviewed the incident two years ago.

"Did somebody know about the use of force? There should be a police report documenting that this officer used whatever level of force. I don't know if it's a punch. I don't know if it's a kick. I don't know if he just knocked her to the ground. But whatever that is, there should be a use-of-force report documenting that. And that use-of-force report should have generated a supervisor looking at the video and going, 'Oh, there's a problem' or 'There's not a problem,'" he said.

He called the video another setback in trying to build better relations between the public and law enforcement.

"We need the trust and confidence of the public, and this erodes completely the trust and confidence if this is going on, if this is the response to a woman who's half the size of the police officer," Burbank said.

'System didn't work'

Former Mayor Ralph Becker also used the word "disturbing" to describe the video. Becker, who was mayor during the time of the incident, said he’d never seen the footage before Wednesday or heard that such an incident had occurred and is disappointed he wasn't alerted.

“In the mayor’s office, we had absolutely no knowledge of anything that had happened with this incident,” he said. “If something like that had happened and it had been brought to my attention and our office’s attention, this is something we would have pursued aggressively.”

Becker said he's not sure if police addressed the incident two years ago.

“With what we saw in the video, it’s pretty clear in this case the system didn’t work,” he said. “I would hope that a careful and thorough review is concluded quickly and fairly and that appropriate action is taken, both in terms of this incident and in terms of looking for ways to improve the process."

Becker hopes investigations will uncover any flaws that may have allowed the video to remain buried for two years, whether it’s due to officers not reporting inappropriate conduct per city policy, or a lack of body-camera screening practices or oversight within the police department.

“I hope that’s part of what’s reviewed in this case,” he said. “I don’t want to prematurely start pointing fingers at anybody, but I know what our expectations were, and we were very clear about it.”

Matthew Rojas, Mayor Jackie Biskupski’s spokesman, said the mayor declined to comment on the video because the incident occurred before she was elected and “the police department is handling it.”

“She hasn’t even seen the video yet,” Rojas said Wednesday. “She’s not going to make a statement. She’s more focused on moving forward and making sure we have de-escalation training in place."

When asked if it’s concerning to the mayor that the video surfaced two years later through the media rather than through a screening process within the police department, Rojas said “she’s grateful that the video has come to light.”

Anderson is currently charged with child abuse, a second-degree felony; aggravated assault, a third-degree felony; and assault a class B misdemeanor, for an incident that happened in January.

According to charging documents, Anderson "got angry and began hitting" the same girl, now 9, involved in the prior incident. She threatened to hit the girl with a hammer and started following her in the apartment with a hammer, smashed a globe with the hammer, hit the girl with a hairbrush and then "was squeezing her hands around (the girl's) neck and she couldn’t breathe," the charges state.

On June 27, a judge signed a no-contact order between Anderson and her daughter, court records state, while allowing for supervised visits under certain conditions.

In April, Anderson's defense attorneys requested "any and all audio or video recordings created by law enforcement in relation to this case," according to a request filed in 3rd District Court.

Email: preavy@deseretnews.com; kmckellar@deseretnews.com

Twitter: DNewsCrimeTeam