This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

Disturbing video footage of a 15-year-old quadruple amputee being tackled, pinned to the ground and verbally abused by a sheriff’s deputy is now the focus of an internal investigation by Arizona’s Pima county sheriff’s department.

The footage shows the shirtless boy, who cannot move, screaming as a sheriff’s deputy pins him to the ground while yelling at the teen to stop resisting.

The boy is a ward of the state and resides in a group home in Tucson because he was abandoned by his parents, according to local media.

The eight-minute cellphone video, first published by KOLD in Tucson, was filmed in September by another teenager in the Tucson home, who was also allegedly assaulted by deputies.

On the morning of 26 September, an adult who works at the group home reportedly called police to report that the teen had knocked over a trash can and was yelling and screaming.

A deputy from the Pima county sheriff’s department who responded to the call reportedly determined that the teen was disturbing the peace, and decided to arrest him.

In the footage, the deputy can be seen kneeling on the ground and holding the teenager in a headlock. When the teen tries to break free, the officer tackles him, wrestling him to the floor.

“I will raise my voice to you whenever the [expletive] I want, you understand?” the officer shouts.

After a third teen begins filming, the second teen is placed in handcuffs and the deputy smashes his head into the wall.

Joel Feinman, a Pima county public defender, said the deputy’s compassion-less, aggressive behavior speaks to larger failures in the US justice system.

“I’d like to see this country treat 15-year-old boys with no limbs living in group homes like human beings, and I’d like to see this country have compassion for the most vulnerable among us, and I’d like to see this country and its legal system recognise that troubled children are not criminals,” Feinman told the Guardian.

Feinman, whose office is representing both boys, notes that a parent acting in the same way could be charged with child abuse. The criminal charges against the first teen have now been dropped, but it is up to civil lawyers to talk to the boys to see if they want to bring a lawsuit against the officer and the sheriff’s department.

“The boy needed to be treated with love and compassion, and not assault and arrest,” Feinman said.

﻿Arizona prosecutors dropped disorderly conduct charges against the teenage boy being restrained on the floor in the video, the teen’s attorney said on Friday.

Samuel Jurgena, a Pima county public defender, said his client went public with the cellphone video in order to prompt changes in police treatment of youths in group homes.

“I think everyone feels in my office this cop should not be out here with a badge and a gun if this is how he’s treating kids in group homes,” Jurgena said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

