Latino man recalls beating by Irving Police Officer
Monday, January 17, 2005 at 12:51AM
TheSpook
An Irving man said he thought he was going to die after being beaten by
a police officer during a traffic stop on Jan. 5. Palomino Ochoa said
he was driving home from church when the officer pulled him over. He
said what happened next was frightening. "I was scared," Ochoa said. "I
was very scared ... he kept yelling at me in English, and I didn't
understand." Ochoa said the officer never got out of his car, so he
said he got out of his, and that's when things turned ugly. "When I saw
the reaction of the officer, it was like he wanted to attack me," he
said. "He was pointing a gun at my head." Witnesses said they saw the
officer screaming at Ochoa. Pedro Solano said he watched the whole
thing from his balcony. "He got down on the ground," Solano said. "The
officer sprayed him with mace after he was handcuffed and then started
beating him with a nightstick." Ochoa said he could feel the blows.
"When he was beating me, I felt that he was grabbing my hair to try and
smash my head into the concrete," he said. Ochoa, said after the
incident he lost his job, and he said he still feels the pain from all
the blows to his body. [more]