A man who was trying to help Pittsburgh police make an arrest ended up brutally beaten, tasered and arrested himself.
And it was all caught on video.
Police claimed Daniel T. Adelman “took a fighting stance,” which is common police lingo used to justify beatdowns, even if the person had no intention of fighting cops.
And the video recorded by a witness does not show what took place before the beatdown, but it shows five police officers beating the man with one of them repeatedly punching him, then grabbing him by the head and bashing it on the asphalt.
“Stop resisting!” one of cops yells to the man who is not resisting.
“Get your fucking taser, Bobby!” on cop yells while beating Adelman.
“I’m dead,” Adelman appears to groans from beneath the pile of cops.
“Get on the fucking ground right now,” a cop orders the man who is already on the ground.
“I am trying to help you,” Adelman repeatedly says.
But the cops respond by tasering him.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the incident took place Tuesday night outside the PPG Paints Arena when three cops tried to arrest another man on a forgery warrant.
Two of the cops were in plainclothes. One was in uniform.
Police said that man, David Jones, tried to “bull rush” them, so the three cops began struggling with him.
Meanwhile, Adelman, who was attending a concert but had stepped out to smoke a cigarette, approached them, making the cops fear for their lives – even though Adelman apparently had never met Jones before.
This is how the Post-Gazette explains it:
“In fear he was going to strike myself or other officers, I struck the male in the face to halt his attacking and advancing nature,” Officer Jacobs wrote.
Mr. Adelman fell against a wall, got up and approached the officers again, according to the complaint. They threw him to the ground. He pulled one hand under his body and grabbed at Officer Jacobs’ shirt with his other hand, according to the complaint.
Officer Jacobs punched the man in the face between three and five times, he wrote in the affidavit, and then another four to seven times in the rib cage.
Officer Palivoda, who had arrived as backup with Officer Rende, then struck Mr. Adelman with a Taser and subdued him.
Mr. Adelman was at a Cleveland Clinic hospital Wednesday night being treated for a broken nose, dislocated shoulder and a possible concussion, said his nephew, Marcus Adelman. Pittsburgh attorney Phil DiLucente, who is representing Mr. Adelman, said he will hold a press conference Thursday where he will release more information.
Mr. Adelman’s sister, Shelli Andrick, 48, of Springfield, Ohio, said her brother works as a professional painter and was visiting Pittsburgh with his wife for a concert. She said he left his wife to smoke a cigarette and never came back.
His wife later got a text from him that said, “I’m arrested. Find me.”
The incident is getting a lot of attention in Pittsburgh with one cop, Andrew Jacobs, being placed on desk duty, according to WPXI.
Adelman, 47, was charged with obstructing the administration of law, resisting arrest and public drunkenness.
Jones, 34, was charged with flight to avoid apprehension as well as resisting arrest, which would suggest he never tried to bull rush the cops.
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