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A Bayonne family has filed a federal lawsuit against the Bayonne Police Department, stating officers beat up a handcuffed man and pepper-sprayed his mother for no reason.

(Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal)

BAYONNE — A Bayonne family has filed a federal lawsuit against the Bayonne Police Department, stating officers beat up a handcuffed man and pepper-sprayed his mother for no reason.

Brandon Walsh, 26, and his mother and other family members filed the lawsuit on Nov. 17, over an incident that occurred nearly a year ago.

On Dec. 27, 2013, police officers went to an Avenue C address to arrest Walsh on an outstanding warrant, Bayonne police told The Jersey Journal in early January.

According to the lawsuit, Walsh opened the door for the officers and as his mother and other family members approached, they saw the officers — identified in the lawsuit as Domenico Lillo, James Wade and Francis Styles — “storm into the home.”

The officers sprayed the chemical irritant at Walsh as they attacked him, throwing him on the ground, the lawsuit stated. Next, they sprayed his mother, Kathy Walsh, in the face when she “attempted to find out what was going on,” according to the lawsuit.

Bayonne police have a different version of the events. They say that when Walsh opened the door, officers asked him to step outside, but he refused, pushed one of them back and tried to close the door.

Officers grabbed the front of Walsh’s shirt to keep him from closing the door, at which point he repeatedly struck one of the officers on the side of the face and on top of the head, police said.

Bayonne police did not mention the use of pepper spray in the narrative they provided to The Jersey Journal 11 months ago.

City spokesman Joe Ryan referred all inquiries about the lawsuit to the city’s law department. John Coffey II, director of the law department, declined to comment on the case.

According to the lawsuit, the pepper spray that the officers used “covered (Kathy Walsh)’s grandchildren” and spread to the other family members in the house, causing the whole family, including the family’s dogs, to “become violently ill.”

Police say that after a struggle, the officers flipped Walsh onto his stomach and handcuffed him, but as he was being escorted down the front steps, he pulled away, causing him to fall into the side wall of the building and pull an officer down with him.

The officer fell on top of Walsh, who suffered a cut to his forehead, police said.

Walsh continued to struggle against the officers before they put him into a patrol vehicle, police said at the time.

The Walsh family says in the suit that Walsh did not pull away from the officers, but “tripped on the stairs and fell down.”

According to the lawsuit, before putting him in the vehicle, Lillo retrieved a “flashlight or other blunt instrument” from his police duty belt and struck him in the face “numerous times,” causing “permanent injury and disfigurement.”

While Walsh, who was still in handcuffs, was struck repeatedly in the face, the other two officers “stood by and did nothing,” the lawsuit states.

Brandon suffered permanent scarring and lost almost all of his front teeth as a result of being hit in the face, the lawsuit claims.

The incident was captured by a local business’ video surveillance system, which the family’s attorney, Joel Silberman, declined to release on Tuesday. Aymen Aboushi is also listed as an attorney representing the family.

According to police, at the time he was put into the patrol vehicle, Walsh was bleeding heavily and was transported to Bayonne Medical Center.

The lawsuit additionally accuses the officers of swearing out false criminal complaints against Brandon, and accuses Styles of concocting “a whimsical perjure-laden police report that perverted what actually happened.”