Video of Phoenix police using Taser and punching deaf man with cerebral palsy

The arrest of a deaf black man with cerebral palsy who was repeatedly beaten by two Phoenix police officers in August and later charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest has come under new scrutiny.

Tyrone McAlpin was arrested on August 19 by officers Benjamin Harris and Kyle Sue. But his arrest recently gained national attention when one of his lawyers, Jesse Showalter, released police body camera videos and surveillance footage of his arrest.

Some seized on the officers' actions as further evidence that the Phoenix Police Department, which the Justice Department said discriminates against minorities and uses excessive force, requires federal oversight. There is no indication that officers knew McAlpin was deaf or had cerebral palsy before his arrest.

Amid growing public outrage, Maricopa County District Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in a statement Monday that the case “warrants additional investigation.” Phoenix is ​​the county seat of Maricopa County.

Mitchell said he has “great faith in the attorneys” who work at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and who have reviewed the case thus far, but plans to investigate the case himself.

“Due to the focus on this case, I will personally review the entire file as well as the entire video,” he said. “I may or may not come to a different conclusion, but I believe this case deserves further investigation.”

According to a police incident report provided to NBC News by McAlpin's attorney, shortly before 8 a.m. on Aug. 19, Harris E. Indian responded to an emergency call about a fight at a Circle K convenience store on School Road .

The 911 caller said the attacker was a white man in his 20s and was still in the store, according to the police report. Harris spoke with the man, who said he had dried blood on his shirt and appeared disfigured, according to an account of the interaction included in Harris' incident report.

According to the incident report, the man told Harris he was assaulted after trying to stop a bicycle theft. When speaking with the officer, he said McAlpin, 34, who was walking nearby, pointed at the man who attacked him, according to the incident report.

Harris and Sue followed McAlpin in separate vehicles and intercepted him in the parking lot of another store.

Harris' body camera video shows him trying to arrest McAlpin seconds after exiting the car. The officer said in his report that he did so after McAlpin did not respond to verbal commands to “stop where you are.” McAlpin's lawyer said he is deaf and therefore unable to comply with officers' orders.

Harris said that after exiting the car and attempting to grab McAlpin's left arm, McAlpin “immediately engaged in active aggression by punching Harris in the head with his left hand.”

Within 15 seconds, an officer says “get lost” and orders McAlpin to put his hands behind his back, body camera video shows. Sue punches McAlpin in the head several times. While McAlpin is face down and Sue holds her left hand behind her back, Harris shocks McAlpin and yells at her to put her hands behind her back. Sue punches McAlpin in the back again. McAlpin screamed and moved his right hand back. Harris tells Sue, “I think I broke my arm,” and Harris says McAlpin bit him, the body camera video shows. Most of the interaction was captured on Harris' body camera. At the beginning of the arrest, Sue's body camera turns off and only shows the floor. McAlpin's lawyer denies that his client bit Sue, saying he believes both officers' injuries resulted from his “frenzied and violent attack on Tyrone.”

After McAlpin was handcuffed, he was heard making several noises.

McAlpin's wife arrived at the scene minutes later and told officers he was deaf and had cerebral palsy, body camera video shows. He asked police to let McAlpin know he was at the scene and Harris responded, “No. He doesn’t need to know.” McAlpin is seen in the video lying on the ground in the parking lot with Sue, Harris and another officer. The woman asks the officers for her badge number and name and says they were wrong to stun her with a Taser. point tries to approach Carrey and Harris told him he needed to back off or he would be arrested, the video shows.

McAlpin was charged with two counts of aggravated assault and one count of resisting arrest, both felonies, as well as a misdemeanor count of robbery because the white man accused him of stealing his cell phone, According to a report obtained by NBC News. The robbery charges were dismissed in September.

In an interview Monday, Showalter said he received the video and police report from McAlpin's parents. NBC News submitted a public records request for these and other files, but has not yet received them. Showalter said he also requested relevant videos, including body camera videos of police interviews with Circle K employees, who denied the man's allegation of assault white on August 19, and other complete police files on McAlpin's arrest. He has not yet received a response, the lawyer said. He said he plans to file a lawsuit under the Public Records Act if he doesn't get that information by November.

Showalter said his priority remains what he describes as dropping unjust charges.

“Whenever a person faces criminal charges, which necessarily impair their civil rights, potentially involving prison time, that should always be the first priority,” he said. “My personal focus is to make sure people in this community are aware that this happened. And when people hear the story, they will come forward with additional information.”

The Phoenix Police Department said in a statement Monday that McAlpin's arrest is the subject of an ongoing internal investigation and was assigned to the Bureau of Professional Standards on Aug. 30.

The department did not respond to questions about the officers' employment status while the investigation was ongoing.

The Arizona NAACP asked that they be placed on administrative leave pending a full investigation into their conduct and to inform the community of the timeline for that investigation. The agency also demanded that the charges be dropped, that police release full-body camera videos and surveillance footage of arrests, and that the police department immediately review and reform its protocols for interacting with people with disabilities.

Arizona State Vice President Andre Miller said: “Tyrone was not a suspect in an actual crime, he did nothing wrong and has communication challenges, his attack happened seconds after the police car was parked.” NAACP Conference. “There was no true communication present at this meeting.”

In June, the Department of Justice released a report following a three-year investigation that Phoenix police discriminated against blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans in law enforcement, illegally detained homeless people, used excessive force, including unnecessary deadly force , and that agents disproportionately targeted communities of color.