Heaney was on his way on his bike to visit his terminally-ill mother at a nursing home when he ran a red-light. Not knowing that the men were undercover detectives, he got into a verbal exchange with the detectives and says that he knocked the Colorado Rockies hat off the head of Det. Michael Cordova. It went from the mundane to the medieval at that point.
Three officers proceeded to pummel Heaney, causing facial, neck, and shoulder injuries. The video shows them throwing him to the ground and Cordova pulling his head back by his hair and slamming it into the cement — breaking his teeth.
TV producer Greg Prinkey witnessed the whole attack . “He was not resisting. It was totally uncalled for.”
When Prinkey saw men beating Heaney, he ran in to stop the fight. The officers then yelled, “Hey, we’re cops! Get the (expletive) out of here!”
Prinkey correctly notes that “Had I not been rolling the camera, and no one else was rolling the camera, it might have just been swept under the rug.” Indeed, like many such police abuse cases, the officers charged the man with assaulting them — in this case producing a pair of broken sunglasses from one officer as evidence.
Officers Cordova and James Costigan both denied under oath knowing anything about the broken teeth and denied slamming his head into the cement. Cordova testified, “I have not a clue.” That is an understatement.
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