The Santa Ana Police is under fire after a video that appears to show two officers joke about assaulting an amputee in the aftermath of a raid on the Sky High medical marijuana dispensary.
The amputee is said to be Marla James, who is visible in a wheelchair if you watch the video below.
At one point, one of the male officers involved in the raid asks a female officer, “Did you punch that one-legged old benita?”
“I was about to kick her in her f****** nub,” the female officer responds.
At another point in the video, the Santa Ana Police officers appear to smell and sample the merchandise while joking about the taste and throwing darts at one another.
KTLA reached out to the department for answers, and received a response from Cmdr. Chris Revere.
“We’re obviously concerned about the conduct that we saw in the edited video,” he said. “We’re also concerned that the video was heavily edited. We’d like to see the original video in its unedited version.”
The raid video was edited and released to the public by Matthew Pappas, the attorney for James.
“I’d like to see the police officers disciplined for the behavior that goes on here. I’d like to see the city stop engaging in illegal conduct,” Pappas told the news site.
Whether that happens is up in the air, but Revere has assured the public that there will be an investigation to determine whether there was any wrongdoing, and if so, which officers were responsible.
As for the raid itself, that was technically legal due to the fact that Sky High had not obtained a permit to operate in the face of a temporary restraining order on marijuana dispensaries, Revere said.
(Only 20 dispensaries did receive the proper documentation.)
“If the temporary restraining order is lifted, the city can then begin issuing permits for legal dispensaries to operate,” Revere added.
This certainly isn’t the first example of police misconduct to crop up this month. Just a few days ago, a police officer in McKinney, Texas, resigned his post amid mounting public scrutiny after aggressively wrestling a bikini-clad 14-year-old to the ground. The incident was caught on video and made national headlines.
(The Inquisitr has a full report here .)
What do you think about this latest case of potential officer misconduct, readers? Do the Santa Ana Police need a third-party investigation of the contents of this video? Do you see anything here that should be a “fire-able offense”? Sound off in the comments section.