Newly released body cam footage shows encounter that led to charges against fired BRPD officer
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BATON ROUGE - Body camera video released Monday shows former Officer Blane Salamoni roughing up a man who resisted arrested and had a gun in his pocket.
The June 10, 2016 incident has led to Salamoni being issued a misdemeanor summons for simple battery, but it has some similarities to the circumstances less than a month later that led Salamoni to shoot and kill Alton Sterling.
According to a release from BRPD, Salamoni and other officers were responding to a domestic incident involving a suspect identified as 'Mr. Brooks'. The document says Brooks was tased and brought to the ground after he led police on a foot chase.
When Salamoni was on top of Brooks, he demanded that the suspect give his hands so that he could handcuff him.
“Move your f***ing hand again and see what happens," Salamoni was heard saying in the body cam footage.
The footage goes on to show Salamoni slapping the handcuffed suspect in the head.
Salamoni’s report says “he forcefully pulled Mr. Brooks to the ground and delivered multiple straight closed fist punches to Mr. Brooks head until the other two officers were able to remove the weapon from his rear pocket,” according to the news release. The release also says that Salamoni displayed "unprofessional behavior" during other calls within that same week.
At the advice of his attorney, Officer Salamoni refused to give a statement nor did he cooperate with the internal affairs investigation into the confrontation with Brooks.