A deputy of an upstate New York sheriff has been suspended following a profanity-laced video circulating on the Internet which captured the officer slapping a young man.
The deputy was insisting to search the vehicle of the man, which contained a rifle in the back seat.
Michael Zurlo, the sheriff of Saratoga County, said that he was "very disturbed" with what he had seen in the recorded video. According to Zurlo, the authorities will be looking into the incident and will be handling it swiftly.
The deputy in question is 48-year-old Sgt. Shawn Glans, an officer for the past 27 years. Glans received a suspension without pay as an internal investigation continues.
The video was taken by a friend of the young man that was abused by Glans in the encounter at Halfmoon. Glans approached the two men after the pair walked out of a nearby patch of woods to their car, which was located in a parking lot of an establishment.
Glans, noticing the .22-caliber rifle in the car's back seat, began insisting to search the vehicle. Glans said that the men, who wore dark clothes, acted suspiciously but did not break any laws.
"We'll get a (expletive) search warrant," Glans tells the man in the video. The man questioned the insistence of Glans to search the vehicle, which made the officer frustrated.
Glans then demanded for the keys to the vehicle, but the young man stayed firm on not allowing the officer to search his vehicle.
Afterwards, the deputy slapped the young man as he said "You want to (expletive) resist?" While it was not seen in the video due to the camera being pointed down, it can be heard.
According to Glans in an interview with the Times Union, the incident reached to that point because of several factors, one of which was the gun that he saw in the car's back seat.
When Glans was asked whether he would do the same thing again, the officer said that he would. However, if he knew that the incident was being recorded, he might not have.
"You saw the video. It doesn't look good," Glans said.
"If I had to do it all over again ... I'd probably do the same thing. If I knew the camera was there, no, because it does look bad," Glans continued.
Liveleak.com cited an interview with one of the young men involved in the incident, which was credited to another website, Photography is Not a Crime. The interview revealed that the pair left their car at the parking lot and then walked to a party nearby.
The interview also revealed that the gun was purchased earlier that day, and that they had a receipt for it. The pair was allowed to leave by Glans after the receipt was shown to the officer.
Watch the video below. [Warning: Contains profanity]
