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Jason Cox (right) listens to opening statements Tuesday in his civil suit against Portland police. One of his attorneys, Jason Kafoury, is pictured on the left.

(Aimee Green/The Oregonian)

Jason Matthew Cox

Opening statements began Tuesday in a $550,000 lawsuit filed by a 40-year-old man who was zapped with a Taser four times and repeatedly punched in the face by Portland police -- he claims during an unprovoked case of police violence.

The June 18, 2011 incident was captured on private surveillance video in the parking lot of the Pallas Club, a strip club at Southeast Powell Boulevard and 136th Avenue. Police had approached Jason Cox, suspecting him of drunken driving. The officers -- Jeffrey Elias, Robert Bruders and Sarah Kerwin -- say Cox pulled his hands away as they tried to handcuff him, then burrowed his hands underneath his body as he lay on the ground.

“They hadn’t patted him down,” said deputy city attorney Rob Yamachika. “They didn’t know what he might be reaching for.”

So officers repeatedly shocked him with a Taser and punched him.

Once in custody, Cox refused to blow into a Breathalyzer. More than three hours later -- after police obtained a warrant -- Cox’s blood alcohol content was measured at .078 percent. That’s just below the legal limit of .08 percent, which is the point that every driver is considered legally impaired. Drivers can be convicted of driving under the influence of intoxicants with lesser blood alcohol contents if it can be proven they were impaired. And that’s what happened in Cox’s case.

Nonetheless, Cox’s attorneys say Cox’s DUII didn’t warrant the “battery” that he endured. The video shows that Cox didn’t swing -- or otherwise attack -- police when they knocked him to the ground. Note, the video above, which was posted on YouTube by Cox's attorneys, is choppy because the surveillance camera was motion-activated.

“We will show they beat him because he was annoying,” said one of Cox’s Portland attorneys, Greg Kafoury. “He was trying to talk his way out of being arrested for drunk driving.”

Kafoury continued: “They were on top of him. He was face down on the pavement, completely helpless, unable to defend himself."

Cox contends that when he told Officer Bruders to be careful as Bruders cuffed him because he had a previous shoulder injury, the officer yanked Cox’s arm with such force that he’ll never be able to work in his $33-an-hour ironworker job again.

The city, however, contends that the officers used only the force necessary to safely take Cox into custody. What’s more, the city plans to call upon the testimony of a medical expert who believes Cox’s pre-existing injury was made no worse by the police encounter.

Cox’s side will present evidence that will show that upon learning that night that the incident had been recorded, they began “a series of efforts thereafter with one goal in mind: damage control,” Kafoury said. Kafoury said police coached two witnesses to make statements that the video shows aren’t true.

The jury trial, in the Multnomah County Circuit courtroom of Judge John Wittmayer, is expected until the end of this week.

-- Aimee Green