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Cop Who Beat Up Public Urinator Docked 10 Vacation Days


April 28, 2015 | Liam Mathews

Public urination is a very low-level offense, usually written up as a violation with a $50 fine. It’s one of the broken-windows offenses that the City Council wants to decriminalize, since it happens so often; is not that big of a deal; and disproportionately affects non-criminals like Ryan Scails, who was violently shoved into a wall and beaten with a nightstick after resisting arrest. His arresting officer, Keith Dsouza, was docked 10 days vacation time for using excessive force, the New York Daily News reports.

The incident happened on the 4th of July, 2012 in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Scails was leaving a party and stopped to relieve himself on a building. Officer Keith Dsouza and his partner approached him, and he fled. Dsouza then pursued him in the cruiser, and the confrontation when Dsouza caught up is shown in the video above.

Scails admits that he was wrong to run, but that the beating occurred after he had surrendered. The Civilian Complaint Review Board agreed, and penalized Dsouza by taking away vacation time.

As always, it must be pointed at that Scails, a 155-pound art student who is black, would probably not have been assaulted if he was white.