A Southern California sheriff’s deputy yanked an intoxicated man from his parked car and repeatedly punched him in the face until he lost consciousness, placed him under arrest, and then blamed the violence on the motorist, according to court documents and dashcam video footage.

On the morning of Aug. 19, two Orange County sheriff’s deputies found Mohamed Sayem sleeping in the driver’s seat of his Jeep in the parking lot of a bar in Stanton, California. Footage from a police dashcam shows the deputies flank either side of the black Wrangler, and after a brief and mostly unintelligible conversation, because Sayem was so intoxicated, Deputy Michael Devitt reaches in, grabs the 33-year-old from out of his seat, and punches him until he falls to the ground.

However, in an incident report and ensuing interview with their supervisor, the deputies stated that the intoxicated motorist had provoked the attack.

Sayem, a bus driver, is now facing a felony charge of resisting arrest and has pleaded not guilty, court records show. His attorney, assistant public defender Scott Sanders, says that his client is a victim of “unjustifiable, significant force” and of a false report.

“There is no way you can justify that level of violence when video shows that this guy was so wholly intoxicated that he can't even wake up or insult them,” Sanders told BuzzFeed News. “Then they lied about it in a false report, a sergeant signed off on it, and now they say the officer’s actions were appropriate. What kind of department says this kind of treatment of a person is fine?”

In his motion, Sanders combed through Devitt’s report and other deputies’ testimonies, flagging what he calls “blatant lies” contradicted by the video and audio recordings of the incident.

After shaking Sayem awake around 6 a.m. that day, the deputies can be heard repeatedly asking for his identification, which he did not provide. In the recordings, the driver mumbles and delivers “a number of partially understandable answers, statements, and insults — often chuckling and falling in the car as he delivered them,” the court documents state.

“Are you going to breath me?” Sayem slurs.

“What? Stay in the fucking car, dude,” a deputy responds.

Sayem then asserts that he is going to leave, and tries to get out of the car. Devitt puts his hand on the driver and warns him not to.

“Don’t touch me like that,” the driver yells, trying to pull his arm away.

The deputy then grabs Sayem by the arm and yanks him out as he tries to cling to the steering wheel, blaring his horn as Devitt quickly delivers multiple punches to his face. Sayem eventually lets go of the wheel and falls to the ground as the deputy continues to pummel him.

“Are you going to shoot me?” Sayem asks, his face in the ground as the deputies handcuff him.

“No,” one replies, while the other chimes in, “I'd like to.”