WASHINGTON: A federal grand jury has indicted the Alabama police office who violently threw to the ground an Indian grandfather visiting his son in the town of Madison, saying he used "unreasonable force" while acting in uniform.

The victim, Sureshbhai Patel was partially paralyzed and had to spend severl weeks in the hospital, and has only now resumed walking with the aid of a walker.

The one-count indictment filed in US district court charges that Eric Sloan Parker, 26, while acting in his official capacity as a police officer on February 6, injured Patel (identified in the indictment only by his initials S.P) by slamming him to the ground. Parker's actions deprived Patel of his right under the US Constitution to be secure from unreasonable seizures, which includes the right to be free from unreasonable force by someone acting under color of law, according to the indictment.

The indictment carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison if proved in a court of law. Parker’s attorney has said he expects his client, who has been fired from the Madison police force, to plead not guilty.

Patel was out on a morning walk for exercise in the vicinity of his son’s suburban house in Madison when a neighbor reported a "skinny black guy" in a call to 911 and asked the police to check him out. Officer Parker and a trainee colleague arrived on the scene in a patrol car and accosted Patel to question him, and found that he spoke limited English. Then, inexplicably, Parker tripped Patel and threw him to the sidewalk face down.

The incident was captured by the dashboard camera of the police car, and the video went viral, causing widespread outrage in India and also in the US Concerned people, mainly Indian-Americans, raised more than $ 200,000 for Patel’s medical expenses, since he had been in the U.S for just about two weeks at that point and was uninsured. Efforts by Parker to similarly raise at least $ 10,000 for legal expenses netted less than $3500.

The Madison police initially suggested that Patel resisted questioning, claiming in a that he "began putting his hands in his pockets," (a strict no-no in gun happy America) when the officers arrived, and that he "attempted to pull away" when the officers tried to pat him down. But following a review of the incident by its Office of Professional Standards, it concluded that the actions of Officer Parker "did not meet the high standards and expectations of the Madison City Police Department."

The statement included an apology to Patel’s family, following which Parker was fired from the force, arrested and charged with third-degree assault, a misdemeanor to which he has pleaded not guilty. That case will go on separately. Patel meantime has filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court against Parker and the city of Madison, seeking unspecified damages.

The Justice Department indictment was announced Friday by Acting Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Civil Rights Division, US Attorney Joyce White Vance of the Northern District of Alabama, and Special Agent in Charge Roger Stanton of the FBI, who investigated the case. Trial attorneys of the Civil Rights Division and Assistant U.S attorneys from Alabama will now prosecute the case.