Report: NYPD officer taped beating man

News Staff Reports

A city cop was videotaped beating a man with a police baton in Manhattan, according to a broadcast report Tuesday night.

Channel 4 said a passerby filmed part of the July 4 clash between Michael Cephus, 46, of Brooklyn, and officers on Delancey St.

Cephus had been trying to reach a park along the East River to watch the fireworks and police had accused him of illegally trying to carry liquor inside.

Police maintain that Cephus had been drinking, swung at police officers with an umbrella, hit two cops with his fists and refused to be handcuffed, Channel 4 said.

Cephus' attorney Steven Orlow told the station that his client did not have any liquor, was not intoxicated, did not strike the officers and should not have been arrested.

"I would never strike an officer," the station quoted Cephus, a former truck driver, as saying. "Why should I get beat up? Why should anybody get beat up?"

Channel 4 said the officer wielding the baton, Maurice Harrington, 31, had been stripped of his gun and badge and placed on desk duty while the incident was investigated.

"Without question the force utilized to effectuate that arrest was far beyond anything that was justified," Orlow told the station.

I don't know about this one, yes it does seem like they used excessive force but we don't know what this dude did to the officers before the tape began. There's 2 sides to every story and the tape only shows 1 but regardless cops have been getting away with murder for years, it's time to put a stop to it.