Phuong Ho

So what would you say when a person who is supposed to enforce the law on the masses is violating it himself? It’s unjust and unjustifiable. The recent incident of an unarmed university student being beaten by a police officer is raising many questions? Phuong Ho, 20, was beaten by a policeman and the whole incident got recorded with a mobile camera. The video was posted by a news company on its website and hence prompted many to raise voice against the violent act of the policeman.

The incident occurred on September 3, when a confrontation took place between Phuong Ho and his room mate Jeremy Suftin. Jeremy put soap in Ho’s steak and the two scuffled at the matter. Ho took a knife and said that had it been his own country he would have killed Suftin. Other room mates called the police and four officers responded. One of the officers, Kenneth Siegel, tried to get hold of Phuong Ho. Other room mates say that the officer was having difficulty to understand the accent of Ho who belongs to Vietnam. Officer Siegel asked Ho to stand still but Ho couldn’t get him so he started following officer Siegel when he was moving to other room. Another officer Steven Payne seeing Ho moving tried to handcuff him. He writes in his report that he pushed Ho to stand against the wall but when he resisted he grounded him. Phuong Ho, who was stuck, started moaning and screaming. His other room mate Dimitri Masouris started capturing the scene on his camera.

When interviewed, Ho said that he was trying to take his glasses which fell off on the floor but the officer continuously pushed him towards the wall and beat him.

Phuong Ho has filed a case against the police officer’s act and called their actions excessive. Dimitiri sold the video to Ho’s lawyer which was then acquired by a news company. The video showed a police officer beating Ho with an iron rod ten times on different places including head.

Police experts say that if it’s proved that Ho was handcuffed when the officer beat him then a serious case could be made against them.