Victoria Police suspends four officers
Victoria Police have suspended four officers after CCTV footage emerged showing three separate alleged brutality incidents.
Victoria Police have suspended four officers and reassigned one to alternative duties after CCTV footage emerged showing three separate alleged brutality incidents.
CCTV images broadcast this week showed six police officers attending the Preston home of a disability pensioner known as John in September 2017 and dragging him from his house.
Police went to the house, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, for a welfare check after John’s psychologist called triple-0 to say she was worried about his mental health.
The CCTV cameras captured John being sprayed with capsicum spray and being forced to the ground and later hosed down.
His calf is repeatedly hit with a baton while he is pinned down and an officer can be heard saying: “F..king idiot, do you like that? Do you like that? Smells good, doesn’t it?”
The matter was reported to the state’s anti-corruption body last week.
Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius on Monday said it was too early to act but today suspended three of the officers who attended the incident.
Another police officer was suspended over the arrest of a man robbing a pharmacy in Preston in February 2016.
The man, who was having a psychotic episode, had been armed with scissors at the chemist before police restrained him.
CCTV footage showed the man being punched, kicked in the head and hit with a baton during the arrest.
A police officer in Bendigo has been assigned alternative duties following the airing of video that captured an officer at the police station slamming a handcuffed prisoner headfirst into a metal door, leaving him unconscious and bleeding.
All three incidents are under investigation by the state’s anti-corruption body IBAC and police spokeswoman Alex Day said the actions against the five officers were temporary while the investigation continues.
“As they remain under investigation by IBAC it would be inappropriate for Victoria Police to comment further,” she said.
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