BODYCAM BOMBSHELL
Mentally ill black man Kenta Settles, 28, spent FIVE MONTHS in jail for ‘resisting’ cops who beat, taunted and Tased him
DISTURBING footage shows police taunting, beating and repeatedly Tasering a mentally ill black man - who then spent almost five months in jail accused of "resisting arrest".
Kenta Settles, 28, was punched and kicked by white officers who stopped him without giving a reason as he walked down a street in Cleveland, Ohio in January.
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Settles - who has schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - was only freed from prison after police bodycam videos were .
It comes after angry protests sparked by the deaths of in Minneapolis and .
Settles can be seen in the new bodycam videos writhing on the ground as he is shocked several times with a stun gun.
Officers also yelled swear words at him and called him a "baby" when he started crying during his agonizing ordeal.
Settles suffered a chipped tooth, a rotator cuff injury and a slice near his eye, according to police and court records.
Officer Michael Malak suffered a broken nose in the scuffle and claimed Settles punched him after he was Tasered, although the footage does not show him striking a blow.
Settles is now suing the police over his treatment after the bodycam videos - which had been in public records for months - prompted prosecutors to drop charges against him.
The five white officers involved were all cleared by an internal review two weeks after the January 23 arrest.
'HOPE Y'ALL HAD FUN TONIGHT'
Settles was arrested in Cleveland suburb Garfield Heights shortly after trying to collect a prescription from a CVS drive-thru on foot.
He left without his medicine after a man in a car told him he had a gun, according to reports.
Police claimed the CVS had been robbed earlier that night, but declined to release a description of the suspect.
Bodycam footage shows Settles appearing confused when Officer Malak and his partner Robert Pitts stop him without giving a reason.
"Come here, come here. You're being detained," one officer is heard saying. Settles responds: "What's going on?"
Within seconds, Settles is thrown to the floor and curls into the fetal position as one officer punches him and another fires a taser into his back.
Officers yell at Settles to "stop resisting" and he replies: "I'm not."
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Three more cops arrive to help put him in handcuffs and pin him to the ground for two minutes as he lies motionless.
Settles is seen in another clip crying while face-down on the sidewalk.
Malak mocks him saying: "Are you crying? Oh you poor baby, you shouldn't f***ing hit cops you a**hole."
When he is finally allowed to stand, Settles tells the officers: "I hope y'all had fun tonight.
"Confused the f*** out of me. Do me like that out of nowhere. Was that fair?"
One officer - who was not there at the start - tells Settles: "All you had to do was stop and talk to us and none of this would've ever happened."
He replies: "You didn't ask me to talk."
Garfield Heights police filed charges of felonious assault on a police officer, assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, and he was jailed on a $250,000 bond.
A week later county prosecutors presented the case to a grand jury and he was charged with felonious assault of a peace officer, which carries up to 11 years in prison.
But on Friday prosecutor Michael O’Malley dropped the charges - two days after viewing the bodycam footage for the first time, the Plain Dealer reports.
His office said he will go back to the grand jury and re-present “the entire case” for any additional charges.
A spokesman refused to say if they are considering charges against the officers.
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It comes amid growing calls to "defund" police forces across the US and reform the services after accusations of racism and brutality.
Weeks have protests have followed the death of George Floyd, who for almost nine minutes.
At the weekend protesters in Atlanta torched a Wendy's drive-thru where after failing a sobriety test.
New Bodycam footage shows police officer talking calmly with Rayshard Brooks
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