NC deputies filmed punching a man during drug enforcement. They said it was to help.
Several Rowan County Sheriff’s Office deputies were filmed pushing a man to the ground and repeatedly striking him in front of a Salisbury home on Tuesday, June 30.
The video was made by a woman sitting in a nearby car, and she posted it to Facebook.
But the deputies were trying to save the man from swallowing drugs, said sheriff’s Capt. Mark McDaniel in a phone interview.
“He had put some of those in his mouth in an attempt to swallow it ... they were trying to ... get him to spit it out, so he didn’t swallow it,” McDaniel said. The deputies “may have saved him from getting very ill or possibly could have saved his life.”
Deputies told the man, identified as Thomas Polk, to remove his hands from his pockets, according to a sheriff’s office press release on Thursday. The sheriff’s office alleges he was holding something, but refused to drop it and put it in his mouth after deputies pulled him to the ground. The item was later determined to be crack cocaine, the sheriff’s office said.
The video, recorded from a distance, showed several deputies speaking to the man in the front yard of a home. A deputy behind the man pulled the man to the ground and got on top of him. Other deputies piled on.
“We got some action,” the person filming said repeatedly. “They just beat the sh-- out of that man.” The Charlotte Observer was unable to reach the woman who did the filming.
The person filming said in the video the incident occurred near East Franklin Street. It appeared one of the deputies began punching the man while he was pinned on the ground. A police dog can be seen in the video. The video ends with the man still on the ground under deputies.
The sheriff’s office called the punches “distraction strikes” to get him to comply. He was struck three times, the sheriff’s office said.
None of the deputies have been suspended or disciplined, but internal affairs is looking into what happened, McDaniel said.
Polk was taken to the hospital after. He had not consumed any of the drugs, the sheriff’s office said.
He was charged with one felony and four misdemeanor drug charges, according to court records. He was being held on no bond.
