https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... uffed-man/
A sergeant with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Tampa has been fired and charged with a felony after aiming his gun inches from a handcuffed black man’s head and threatening to kill him if the man did not give his name, according to the sheriff.
Sgt. Janak Amin, a 21-year veteran with the sheriff’s office, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on Friday for threatening the life of the unarmed black man on Thursday, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said at a news conference Friday.
Chronister called Amin’s behavior “despicable,” saying the man under arrest was not being aggressive with officers in any way. He was only quiet — apparently enraging Amin, Chronister said.
“I assure you, he wasn’t being uncooperative,” the sheriff said of the victim, whom the sheriff declined to identify. “The bottom line is there is no reason, no rationale or justification why anyone had to point a gun at his head and threaten his life simply because he refused to identify himself."
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When officers confronted the man and put him in a “prone position” — lying flat on his stomach on the ground — the handcuffed man would not give his name, Chronister said.
So Amin knelt down next to him. He drew his firearm and pointed it inches from the man’s head, the sheriff said.
Then, he told the man that if he refused to give his name, he would “splatter his brains all over the concrete.”
“He said those words,” Chronister said.
The victim said in a statement later that he didn’t give his name because he was “scared to death,” Chronister said.
Fellow officers on scene were alarmed by Amin’s threat, Chronister said. They told Amin they had equipment that would allow them to easily identify the man with the touch of a finger. A detective assured him this was the man they were looking for and stepped in to take the man into his own custody and walk away with him, the sheriff said.
Chronister said he did not believe “this had anything to do” with the victim’s race.
The sheriff applauded the deputies on scene who reported Amin to the command staff immediately after witnessing his behavior. He said they were following recent training requiring them to intervene when they witness excessive force by colleagues.