The suspect, 23-year-old Jose Luis Conde, was arrested January 28 after being pulled over in his car. According to officers' reports, they found what appeared to be cocaine in his sock. At that point, Conde "tensed" and turned to face an officer. The officer says in the report that he believed he was about to be attacked and "took him to the ground."
Police say that they ordered Conde to get out of his vehicle because he had a previous firearm and drug violation, and that he resisted arrest. His attorney, Bret Royle, says that he's never been charged for any weapons-related offenses and Arizona court records "do not appear to show a past weapons charge," according to NBC News.
Video that was obtained by Conde's lawyer and released Thursday shows officers repeatedly punching and swearing at Conde as he was on the ground with several officers on top of him. "I was tased, I was punched over and over by multiple cops. I was gouged in the eye. And I was hit in the head with a massive police flashlight," Conde said at a press conference Thursday.
Later, after he was taken the the hospital, video shows one cop talking to a nurse while on his way to see him. "Bless his little heart," one officer says, adding "screw him" after the nurse describes his injuries.
Police say Conde tried to run out of his hospital room.
When the officer arrives at the hospital in the video, several others are already there. The one whose body cam footage was released repeatedly says "awww" as he looks over Conde, who is lying on the floor of the hospital with blood pouring from his head. "You got to be a man, man," the officer says. "Man up."
Conde is charged with felony possession of cocaine, one count of resisting arrest and trying to escape, as well as aggravated assault against the officers. "After beating my client, [these officers] chose to prosecute him for the beating that they delivered to him," Royle told NBC.
Meanwhile, also on Thursday, a Mesa judge dismissed charges of disorderly conduct and hindering against a man, Robert Johnson, who Mesa police had beaten despite the fact that Johnson was unarmed and not apparently resisting them, according to video released on June 5.
First, officers shackled the man's hands and using zip ties to lock his feet together. Then, "officers are seen directing Johnson to the elevator, an officer is then seen repeatedly slamming Johnson's head against the elevator door," Sputnik News reported. Four officers were placed on leave after Johnson's arrest.
Thursday's news also comes on the heels of video from a third incident released on June 8, which sparked fears of a pattern of use of excessive force by Mesa police. Officers can be seen in the video stepping on the back of a 15-year-old boy's neck and later grabbing him by his neck to push his head against the hood of a police car. Some of those cops were from the same squad that beat Conde. Two officers were placed on leave after that arrest.
Both Johnson and the 15-year-old's arrest occurred in May.
In late 2017, video emerged of Mesa police officers shooting a man to death in a hotel hallway as he was attempting to comply with their orders in what some condemned as an "execution." Video of the January 2016 incident came out after the officer who shot him was acquitted of murder charges.
After NBC News brought the incident with Conde to the attention of the police department, they opened up an internal investigation.
"In recent weeks, the Mesa Police Department and our community have experienced some significant challenges," Chief of Police Ramon Batista said at a press conference on June 8, prior to the surfacing of the Conde arrest video. "Please be assured that we will get through this difficult period together and emerge even stronger."
