Video captures Northern California deputy beating suspect with flashlight

Sacramento County sheriff's Deputy Paul 'Scotte' Pfeifer has been hailed as a hero cop.

The 14-year veteran has won numerous awards in his career, including the department's highest honor – the Sheriff's Gold Medal of Valor – for helping save a baby from a three-day hostage situation on Arden Way.

He has been lauded for bravery, honored by the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and the Carmichael Elks Lodge for helping address the transient problem in the area, feted by the Sacramento chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution and recognized by the California Peace Officers' Association.

He also has been accused in court of using excessive force at least three times since 2009, each time over his use of a flashlight as a weapon, and captured on video in two separate incidents beating a suspect with a long, metal flashlight. Video of one of those incidents began circulating in December. The Sacramento Bee this month obtained exclusive video of the second incident – shot from the dashboard cameras of two patrol cars.

In the most recent complaint, Pfeifer was sued this month in Sacramento Superior Court by a Carmichael man who says he was beaten, pepper-sprayed and shot with Taser darts in December as two bystanders captured the scene on video.

'On the day in question, for no reason other than an apparent reaction to 'contempt of cop' conduct, Deputy Pfeifer tasered, pepper-sprayed and beat plaintiff in the middle of the street, in broad daylight, with his department-issued flashlight,' according to the suit filed by Sacramento attorney Stewart Katz. 'The wrongful attack was witnessed by many citizens who were appalled by the conduct, some of whom recorded the deputy's illegal conduct.'

The plaintiff is John Reyes, 51, who suffered a broken nose, broken ribs, a concussion and a large gash above his left eye, according to the complaint.

Michael White, a witness to the beating of John Reyes of Carmichael, provided The Sacramento Bee this raw cellphone video.

Reyes was well known to the department at the time. He has a lengthy history of arrests for drug- and other nonviolent crimes and was on probation when he encountered Pfeifer that December day. In the six months prior to the incident near Fair Oaks Boulevard and Landis Avenue, deputies had been summoned 16 times by citizens reporting that Reyes was acting suspiciously or disturbing local businesses.

Pfeifer did not respond to a request for comment for this story, and a Sheriff's Department spokesman said he could not comment on pending litigation or personnel issues. Pfeifer was placed on paid leave while internal affairs detectives conducted an investigation. He has since returned to duty and last month became a detective in the department's centralized investigations division, said sheriff's Sgt. Jason Ramos.

Ramos said the move from patrol officer to detective is not a promotion but a reclassification of Pfeifer's duties and is not related to the incident.

The department would not release the findings of the investigation. But Ramos noted that it is not unusual for veteran deputies to face excessive-force accusations and that they are not always substantiated.

At the time of the incident, the department said Reyes resisted being handcuffed, prompting the deputy to use his pepper spray and then his Taser.

'The deputy attempted pepper spray again with no compliance, so the deputy and the subject went to the ground,' department spokeswoman Lisa Bowman wrote in December in an email response to The Bee's questions.

The lawsuit comes as law enforcement officers nationwide find themselves the subject of intense scrutiny. Omnipresent cellphone cameras allow bystanders to capture police incidents on video, and such videos have led to some departments nationwide equipping officers with body cameras that capture their interactions with citizens.

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department is still testing and evaluating body cameras, but has decided not to use them until courts decide whether the footage is public record.

As a result, the videos available in the Reyes incident come from citizens who stopped in a Starbucks parking lot after the initial confrontation began.

'Please, please, stop'

Reyes, a former construction worker and handyman, has a criminal record dating back to 1986.

'The deputy has been in contact with this individual before and he is known to quite a few of our deputies that work that area,' Bowman said in her December email.

Whether Reyes' actions that day warranted the use of force against him likely will be a key part of the lawsuit.

One of the bystanders who recorded the scene said he still does not understand why Pfeifer was hitting Reyes.