San Francisco Police Officer Hits, Kicks Homeless Man Who Slept On Bus (VIDEO)

SAN FRANCISCO — Video recorded on a city bus shows a San Francisco police officer kicking and hitting a homeless man after the officer apparently struggled to wake the man up.

Officer Raymond Chu also allegedly pepper sprayed 36-year-old Bernard Warren, according to the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, as their scuffle moved from inside the empty bus at the last stop in the Richmond district to the street outside.

Warren was hospitalized and jailed for two weeks until a judge saw the footage, which was recorded on Feb. 11. He has been charged with threatening an officer, punishable by a year behind bars.

A jury will hear the case against Warren on March 4.

“Fundamentally we have a situation where a man was sleeping, which is not a crime,” said Coalition on the Homelessness Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach. “It started off as completely innocent. This should not be a police situation. By aggressively charging [Warren], this sends a message to the officer that his behavior was acceptable, that it’s okay to escalate non-criminal situations.”

The Huffington Post