3 Arkansas officers suspended after video of violent arrest emerges

Three cops in Arkansas were suspended after a video emerged that showed them brutally beating a detainee.

In the TikTok video posted on Twitter, one officer holds the man down to the ground as another repeatedly and relentlessly punches the man’s head and a third forcibly nails him with his knee multiple times in a row.

At one point, the officer punching the man in the head lifts the man’s head up from the ground and slams it back down into the cement sidewalk as the man tries to protect his head with his hands, the video shows.

The Arkansas State Police are investigating the arrest, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said.

“I have spoken with Col. Bill Bryant of the Arkansas State Police and the local arrest incident in Crawford County will be investigated pursuant to the video evidence and the request of the prosecuting attorney,” Hutchinson tweeted.

Two of the officers are deputies with the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office and the third is an officer with the Mulberry Police Department.

The sheriff’s office had requested the state police to investigate.

“In reference to the video circulating social media involving two Crawford County Deputies, we have requested that Arkansas State Police conduct the investigation and the Deputies have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation,” Crawford County Sherriff Jimmy Damante said in a statement. “I hold all my employees accountable for their actions and will take appropriate measures in this matter.”

Mulberry city officials also said that the Mulberry police officer was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the state investigation.

“We will take the appropriate actions at the conclusion of the investigation,” the officials said in a statement.

The officers were responding to a report of a man making threats to an employee of a convivence store Sunday morning, according to CBS affiliate THV11.

The man, Randall Worcester of South Carolina, allegedly spat at the worker and threatened to “cut off their face,” the local outlet reported, citing Damante.

The officers caught up to Worcester, 27, who fled on a bike and began a “calm and civil” conversation with him when he allegedly began to attack one of the deputies — pushing him to the ground, the sheriff told THV11.

The alleged attack led officers to restrain Worcester and apparently beat him as shown in the video.

In the footage which is filmed from inside a car, a woman’s voice can be heard gasping at the violence.

“Oh sh–, this is bad,” she says.

She gasps when she sees the officer slam the man’s head into the ground and says something inaudible — along the lines of “there is no need to be beating the sh– out of him” — to the officers.

“Back the f— up,” one officer can be heard saying as another follows with “get in your car.”