Video shows police using Taser on seated, unarmed black man

Sean Williams sat on the curb, arms outstretched, listening to the at times conflicting commands of the officers threatening to shock him with a Taser.

The male officer, Philip Bernot, the one with the black and yellow Taser trained on Williams’ back, repeatedly told him “legs out!” and “straight out!”

The female officer, Shannon Mazzante, off-camera but just as insistent, also was yelling: “Put your legs straight out and cross them now!”

Their wording — and Williams’s exact movements — mattered immensely because by around 10:30 Thursday morning, their commands had escalated to threats: “Legs straight out or you’re getting tased,” Bernot warned.

Moments later, Williams, whose legs were not fully extended, shifted his legs.

Bernot then squeezed the trigger, sending Taser prongs and a current of electricity through Williams’s body — and sparking virulent protests about what many claim is an abuse of power against a person who never posed a threat to officers. “I was tased and I shouldn’t have been tased,” Williams, who is black, told Lancaster, Pa., NBC affiliate WGAL at a protest held on the steps of the county courthouse that drew hundreds. “Because I followed every direction that was given to me.”

Juan Almestica, the bystander who heard the commotion and recorded the video of the police interaction, told ABC News that Williams appeared confused at the conflicting commands.

“One of the officers is telling him to put his legs straight, and another one is telling him to cross his legs. There were so many people shouting at him, he didn’t know what to do. Then they tased him because they said he wasn’t listening.”

Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace said the video is “of great concern to me.” She pledged a thorough investigation by police and the district attorney’s office. In a statement about the incident, Lancaster police said the video was just a snapshot of a more complex series of interactions. It started around 10 a.m. Thursday. Someone called 911 saying a person with a baseball bat had “gone after” another person on a street in central Lancaster.

Mazzante was first to arrive, and three people told her that Williams had refused to leave them alone.

The officer told Williams repeatedly to sit down, but he refused to comply, the statement said, telling one of the women that he wanted his Social Security card back.

Williams maintains that he was not violent or combative with officers.