Video shows California police striking teenager after allegedly jaywalking

Video still courtesy of Edgar Avendano.

Footage emerged Thursday of police officers in Stockton, California, violently arresting a 16-year-old boy for allegedly jaywalking.

Bystander Edgar Avendaño posted video, taken Tuesday, of the incident to his Facebook page. The video shows the teen, identified by his family as Emilio Mayfield, curled up in the fetal position, while an officer seems to press his baton into the teen. Both the officer and the teen have their hands on the officer’s baton.

“Get off,” the boy yells, while the officer can be heard saying, “stop resisting.” When the teen sits up, the officer appears to strike him twice across the face with the baton. The teen then holds his face and cries. More police officers arrive, and four wrestle the teen to the ground to arrest him, while five others stand around.

During the altercation a small black object that looks like the officer’s body camera can be seen lying on the sidewalk in the background of the video. After the altercation, the officer picks it up and attaches it to his uniform. A Stockton Police spokesperson told Vice News that the officer’s camera fell off during the incident.

“The kid got stopped for ‘jaywalking’ when he barely stepped out of the bus,” Avendaño wrote in text accompanying the video. “He was two feet away from the sidewalk when the cop stopped him for ‘jaywalking.’ The cop was telling him to take a sit but the teen kept walking to his bus but the cop kept grabbing his arm & the kid took off the cop’s hand off his arm so the cop took out his baton and that’s when I started recording because everything happened too quick.”

Stockton Police spokesperson Joseph Silva told NBC News that an officer responded after a teen he had told to get on the sidewalk refused to listen and used obscene language.

“If everyone would just learn to comply with the lawful orders from police officers and not try to hold or grab any of our weapons, force would never have to be used,” Stockton said.

Because force was used, the altercation is already under automatic administrative review. It is the latest in a series of videos that have led many in the public to question the use of force in police departments.

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