Anonymous Video Saves Man In Brutal NYPD Beating

Feb 25, 2009
Anonymous Video Saves Man In Brutal NYPD Beating

Michael Cephus Claimed He Didn't Do Anything To Warrant The Attack ... And It Turns Out He Was Right

Victim Doesn't Know Who Made Video, But Wants To Say Thanks

Officer Faces Investigation, Put On Modified Duty
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO
http://wcbstv.com/local/anonymous.video.nypd.2.942981.html

It can be a difficult scene to watch. A man is brutally beaten by cops and then accused of assaulting police.

All the charges have been dropped against a now disabled truck driver whose severe beating on the lower east side was caught on tape!

But to this day, no one knows by whom.

Michael Cephus has just had a weight lifted off him. He was looking at more than a dozen years behind bars on a charge of assaulting a police officer, but the case was dismissed because of a videotape.

It was the 4th of July, in the park by the river on the Lower East Side. Cephus said he and NYPD officer Maurice Harrington exchanged words when Cephus tried to go back into the park. Cephus claims officer Harrington hit him with a collapsible baton for no reason. But once Cephus fell to the ground, what happened next was caught on videotape.

"They say one thing, you say another," Cephus said of his confrontation with the cop. "Right away, it's their word. You don't have nothing. That's it. But with the videotape, it shows I had done nothing, man."

Cephus' lawyer, Steve Orlow, said without the tape his client would be in a world of trouble.

"If not for this video, he'd be facing 15 years right now," Orlow said.

The people who made the video were arrested, and police looked for the video, Orlow said. But they slipped it to a friend of the man who was beaten. Officer Harrington is now on what police call "modified duty," that is, he's been taken off the street and the officer is now looking at an investigation that could lead to charges.

Cephus and his lawyer do not know who made the video, but they would like to find out and say thanks.

And, yes, they will be suing the city.