BigShinyThing

The BBC is reporting that a video showing two LAPD officers beating up a suspect has been posted on YouTube. The video shows two officers punching William Cardenas in the face and pinning him to the ground with a knee to the neck, while he struggles. The incident in Hollywood occurred in August and was filmed by a local. A report by the two officers said Mr Cardenas resisted arrest and they feared he would try to grab their guns.

As reported on the LAPD blog [which -- props to them -- clearly states that it moderates comments but has left a lot of critical ones up], Los Angeles police chief William Bratton described the footage as disturbing but said an investigation had to be carried out to decide whether or not the use of force was appropriate.

“There’s no denying that the video is disturbing,” Mr Bratton said. “But as to whether the actions of the officers were appropriate in light of what they were experiencing and the totality of the circumstances is what the investigation will determine.”

Hoax or not (and this story is being carried by Indymedia as well as the BBC), somewhat sinisterly, comments had been disabled for the footage that we found purporting to be of the incident. Is this more evidence of Google locking YouTube down?

UPDATE: a video has now appeared of a recent incident where a UCLA student was tasered by police in the university library. Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a UCLA student, was repeatedly stunned with a Taser and then taken into custody when he did not exit the CLICC Lab in Powell Library in a timely manner. Community Service Officers had asked Tabatabainejad to leave after he failed to produce his BruinCard during a random check at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Expect much more of this kind of sousveillance turning up on YouTube . Story via PerezHilton, of all places.