A Texas sheriff’s deputy could be seen on video repeatedly slugging a teenager in the face at a gas station after warning that he’d “beat the s–t” out of him.
The footage, obtained Wednesday by KTRK, shows an unidentified Harris County deputy approaching a high school sophomore named Carlos as he sat on an all-terrain vehicle and accused the teen of previously running from him and giving him the finger.
“Remember me?” the deputy said during the Friday encounter. “The one you flipped off a couple times and [ran] from? Give me your ID.”
Carlos then hopped off his red ATV and handed over his license, prompting the deputy to tell him to turn around. The teen appeared to briefly back away as he approached the deputy, setting off the much-larger deputy, the footage shows.
“Don’t run from me, boy, I will beat your f–king ass right here,” the deputy said. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back before I beat the s–t out of you. Don’t be f–king stupid!”
The unidentified deputy approached the teenager who was sitting on an ATV. Screengrab ABC 13The incensed deputy then punched Carlos in the face with a brutal right hook before forcefully taking him to the ground and into custody, the clip shows.
“All I was going to do was talk to you,” the deputy said while atop the teen as his two friends looked on.
Carlos told KTRK he “panicked a little” and pulled away from the deputy before he was taken down.
The cop accused the teen of previously running from him and giving him the finger. Screengrab ABC 13“He just looked at my ID for like two seconds and said to put my hands behind my back,” the teen recalled, adding that he was taken by the deputy to an unknown location where he was fingerprinted before being released to his parents.
The teen was later charged with evading arrest, KTRK reported.
Carlos admitted that he knows ATVs aren’t street legal on local roads and acknowledged he may have tried to elude the deputy previously.
“He just looked at my ID for like two seconds and said to put my hands behind my back,” the teen recalled. Screengrab ABC 13“I just don’t think I should be treated in that manner for riding on the street,” he told the station. “A lot of 16-year-olds got ATVs … [they] want to have fun with friends.”
The deputy, meanwhile, has since been placed on administrative duty as an investigation into the incident continues, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Wednesday.
“We are aware of an incident in which one of our deputies used physical force and unprofessional language against a suspect at a convenience store on Friday,” Gonzalez tweeted.
