by
REBECCA LOPEZ
DALLAS
— Video obtained by News 8 last week is raising concerns again about the
actions of a Dallas police officer.
"What
I saw did disturbs me, and I have some concern," said City Council member
Dwaine Caraway.
In
the recording, Officer Brian Bradley is seen pulling over 59-year-old Albert
Butler for an unsafe lane change in December 2012. Bradley immediately starts
searching Butler.
"Why
would that give him the right to search Mr. Butler like that before anything
had taken place?" asked defense attorney Daryl Washington.
But
it's what the officer does next that is more troubling. He pulls Butler to the
side and out of view of the camera.
Butler
— who is disabled and hearing-impaired — said Bradley then beat him.
"I
was doing all that hollering and screaming and crying out to God, 'Please, make
him stop,'" Butler said. He was hospitalized for his injuries.
The
officer was cleared by the department's Internal Affairs for excessive force,
and that has some civil rights leaders outraged. They maintain that Dallas
police cannot investigate their own.
"We've
requested for the FBI to come in and start investigating these cases with the
Dallas Police Department, simply because of those reasons," said Rev.
Ronald Wright, the founder of Justice Seekers Texas.
On
Tuesday, the case of Tobias Mackey will be heard by a federal judge. His mother
filed a federal civil rights violation lawsuit after Mackey was shot and killed
by police. He was unarmed and had committed no crime.
“Certainly
we don't throw our police department under the bus, but we certainly don't want
to stand by and see our citizens thrown under the bus," Wright said.
The
city has paid nearly $6 million in these types of cases, and the costs are
mounting as the cry gets louder for a Justice Department inquiry into the
Dallas Police Department.