Cops at it again...and caught on film

[Kevin]

I had a friend have this crap happen to him once. Admittedly, he was hammered.

Two policemen told him he was under arrest for DUI. It was Christmas eve, he didn't want to upset his parents, so he tried to run. He got around 20 feet away and realized that was stupid, so he got on his knees and surrendered. A that point, one of the officers told his dog to attack.

My friend, having been raised around Great Danes, shook his hand at the police dog and yelled "No." The police officer was angered by this, so after finally getting the dog to attack, he and his partner, and at this point another pair of cops proceeded to beat the hell out of my friend with their clubs.

His pants were shredded by the dog, there were over 100 puncture wounds. He had bruises all over his back and face where they were beating him with their batons. They also used pepper spray -- this is all while he was on the ground.

My younger brother was with him, he had already surrendered and was handcuffed in the back of the cruiser the whole time. He estimates this beating took around 5 minutes.

The next day, there was a front-page story about how my friend had been charged with assaulting the police officer and assaulting the police dog -- both felonies, along with DUI.

I suspect that's what the city will do in this case -- throw the book at these guys, then do as the city did in my friend's case -- use those felony charges as leverage to keep the city from being sued.

After all that, we did agree not to sue in exchange for the D.A. reducing all charges to public intox.

My guess is that this behavior is more the norm than the exception with the Philadelphia P.D.