Georgia officers fi red after kicking man at traffic stop

Two police officers in Georgia have been fired after videos showed them separately punching a 21-year-old motorist in the face and then kicking him in the head as he lay on the ground in handcuffs during a traffic stop, officials said.

The Gwinnett County Police Department said in statements Thursday that a “very disturbing” cellphone video taken by a witness showed Officer Robert McDonald, 25, using “unnecessary and excessive” force when he kicked the handcuffed man in the head Wednesday.

A second cellphone video was later discovered by police online, showing Sgt. Michael F. Bongiovanni, 41, hitting the victim, who was getting out of a car with his hands up, in his face. The sergeant then lied about the encounter, the department said.

The department said it had started a criminal investigation into the actions of both officers. A representative of the district attorney’s office was not immediately available Friday to comment on whether charges would be filed.

“The revelations uncovered in this entire investigation are shocking,” the police department said. “We are fortunate that this second video was found and we were able to move swiftly to terminate a supervisor who lied and stepped outside of his training and state law.”

Bongiovanni has been with the department since 1998, and McDonald was hired in 2013, the department said. The two could not be reached by phone Friday.

The episode unfolded at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday near Lawrenceville, a suburb of Atlanta and the county seat of Gwinnett County, which has a population of about 850,000.

After the videos were shared online, it quickly became another example of cellphone videos recorded by bystanders prompting investigations of police behavior that fuel mistrust between mostly white law enforcement officers and black people.

In another example this week, a Sacramento police officer, who is white, threw a black man to the ground after stopping him on suspicion of jaywalking, then pinned him there before striking him in the face at least a dozen times, a video showed. The department said that a special unit was investigating and that the Sacramento County district attorney’s office would decide whether to file charges. That officer was put on leave.