St. Louis police investigating video showing cop hitting man

[udbcrzy2]

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Police are investigating an incident at a St. Louis gas station after a Youtube video appearing to show a police officer beating a man with his baton was posted online.

The video shows an encounter between an officer and a man near a car at a Shell station at 1815 Arsenal Street at Interstate 55 early on New Year's Day. The officer appears to push the man to the ground, hit him with his baton seven times, use pepper spray on him, and then handcuffs the man and walks him toward the gas station, which contains a police substation.

It's unclear how the incident started and the man is not visible for portions of the video.

"While all of the circumstances of the incident are not known, what is seen on the video is extremely disturbing to us," St. Louis police said in a statement. "Force is to be used only when absolutely necessary and this department takes the use of force very seriously."

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_e28e3c02-1829-11e0-8561-00127992bc8b.html?mode=story

---

more at link. Also link to the video here
http://www.stltoday.com/youtube_09944950-1829-11e0-9c2c-00127992bc8b.html


Wonder how they are going to spin this one?