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2 Colorado cops arrested after bodycam footage shows one pistol-whipping unarmed Black man

AURORA, Colo. — A beleaguered Colorado police department is again under fire after body-worn cameras captured one of its officers pistol-whipping an unarmed Black man and holding a gun to the back of his head.

Aurora police Officer John Raymond Haubert, 39, is charged with multiple counts of assault, as well as menacing, official misconduct and official oppression. According to court records, all but the misconduct and oppression charges are felonies.

The victim, Kyle Maurice Vinson, 29, was struck more than a dozen times with Haubert’s handgun, according to the camera footage.

A fellow officer, identified as Officer Francine Martinez, is accused of failing to stop Haubert. Martinez, 40, is charged with failing to do her duty to intervene and her duty to report excessive use of force by an officer, police officials said.

The bill requiring police officers to intervene and report brutality by fellow officers was signed into law last June as police departments across the country faced criticism of how their officers treat people of color. The changes, and the nationwide protests that led to them, came about in the wake of the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

In Aurora, the face of the movement has been Elijah McClain, an unarmed Black man who was killed in police custody in August 2019. Officers who stopped McClain for “sketchy” behavior restrained him on the ground and used a dangerous chokehold on him even as he vomited and gasped for air.

Paramedics who responded to the scene then gave McClain, 23, an overdose of the powerful sedative ketamine. He went into cardiac arrest at the scene and was rushed to a hospital, where he died a few days later.

Read the article in its entirety at fox23.com