Police in Akron are investigating the takedown of a suspect that was caught on tape Sunday.
The video has been shared thousands of times on Facebook, and shows what looks to be an aggressive situation.
The Akron Police Department has been speaking with witnesses as well as the officers involved, plus reviewing body camera footage. They say the snippet that made it online doesn't tell the full story.
"What they see is a snippet of the interaction between the officers and the subject. They don't see the full course of events," Deputy Chief Jesse Leeser told us.
The snippet that has gone viral shows two Akron police officers trying to restrain a suspect. You hear one officer yell, "STOP GRABBING ME," and then you hear the taser.
According to Akron Police, what you didn’t see was the officers getting called to the area on complaints from a known drug location. When they saw the suspect leave and stopped to question him, he lied about his identity, was under the influence of some sort of drug, and resisted arrest.
"When the officers got one handcuff on him, he (the suspect) began fighting with them," Leeser explained. "The subject was 6'4", 220 pounds. He outweighed both officers on scene and they struggled with him for several minutes on the ground. This was a very dangerous situation. The officers' weapons were on their hips and exposed to someone on the ground and he hasn't followed any of our verbal commands. They tried tasing him with no success."
That suspect is 47-year-old Patrick King, who had a warrant out in Cleveland. The struggle persisted until back up arrived.
The major outcry from those looking on and those online seems to be centered on the appearance of punches being thrown to the suspect while he's on the ground.
"We're trained on how to use strikes, because sometimes you do have to throw punches," says Leeser. "This wasn't blows to the face or blows to the throat. These were blows to areas that aren't going to cause real damage. The goal of these interactions is to end it as safely and as quickly as possible."
King was taken to the hospital after the arrest and released. He was charged with tampering with evidence, resisting arrest, misrepresenting his identity drug abuse and drug paraphernalia and is currently being held in Summit County Jail.
