Auburn police officer under investigation after video of physical altercation spreads online

Wanted to jump into a story that has drawn a lot of attention down south of us. In Auburn, a confrontation, a physical escalation caught on camera. And a lot of people spreading it online now where you see an officer hitting what appears to be a suspect down on the ground. I want to bring in Fox 13's Dan Griffin. He's joining us live from inside the newsroom. room. And Dan, I I'm not saying a lot here because I know, honestly, frankly, to the viewers at home, we really got to be very careful when we see some of this, where the video comes from, what we see, what we know, and you've been staying on top of this and actually tracked down some folks connected to this story. So why don't we kind of start with the mile-high view of what it is you're looking into today. Yeah, so we just got back from Auburn. So we were down there and we were in the area of where this all took place. This was on Auburn Way North. This is near a number of car dealerships. There's a public storage there. There's a gas station there. So it's a pretty busy area. And so this was yesterday about three o'clock or so. Auburn police say they were dispatched to reports of a man running in and out of traffic. They're on Auburn Way North and that he was trying to get into some cars as they were going by. So they sent officers. They say when the first officer arrived that he tried to get the man to listen to his commands and the man wasn't doing that. So then they tried to use a taser and tried to handcuff the man. And then that's when a fight happened. And that was captured on cell phone video from people in the area. By the way, there's a number of different people who happen to be in the area and who saw this playing out. So when we went down there, we started talking with people who worked in nearby businesses. We started talking with people who were at the gas station. We started talking with people who were walking by. And this is a video that is not only blown up, you know, in Auburn, but around the Puget Sound as people try to get a good understanding of what happened. Because you see this fight happening and you see this man. Getting punched time and time and time again by police and at this point police telling us essentially that the man was taken to the hospital that he didn't have serious injuries and that he was taken for evaluation but they haven't spoken to anything beyond that. We wanted to have an interview with police and with city leaders quite frankly because this is a pretty elevated situation but they have not been willing to do that so instead. What we've been able to do is talk with people who saw what was going on. And what they say is they saw police hitting the man repeatedly and then hearing the man apologizing and appearing confused. We talked with the man's family off camera. They tell us they believe he was having a mental health crisis and that he was unconscious in the hospital. So a very serious situation. Wow. So I see that you actually talked to somebody who witnessed some of this. As far as tracking this guy down, who is this that saw some of this before we play this clip here? Yeah, so this is a neighbor. And we were in the area gathering video. He saw us out there, tripod, camera. You know, it's hard to miss. And he said, you know, I was here yesterday and I took some video of what was going on. And I saw the man and I heard the man and I saw police. And so he's very likely reflecting on not only what he saw, but what he heard yesterday. Yeah, I rolled up on it right after they had the guy on the ground. And what were you seeing? What were you hearing? So, I pulled into the Toyota dealership across the street and got out of the vehicle out of curiosity. He was on the ground. The officer was in the process of punching him in the face. About that time, a bunch of other officers pulled up. They detained the guy, they had him in handcuffs, paramedics pulled up. There was a lot of noise from spectators and the police, but the suspect was definitely crying out, apologizing, saying he was sorry. He didn't have a shirt on. He was very visibly beat up. He had marks on his back, on his shoulders, on his face. He was in high distress. He seemed confused. What were you feeling as you were watching this? Because it seems this has captured a lot of people in Auburn and beyond. There we are. I was angry. I mean, I did feel like the guy was confused. I didn't feel like he was actively resisting arrest, but I didn't see what led up to it. But, you know, he was trying to put his hands up, and they were punching him in the face. So it was... Alright, bringing back in Fox 13's Dan Griffin. So I want our viewers at home to understand that Dan's full report will be coming up in the four o'clock hour and you will see some of that video. So I know we're kind of walking you through it visually or audio audially right now, but we'll be have a chance to show this to you and the four o'clock hour. But Dan, I mean, that that guy seems just. Almost distraught, like it just kind of seemed like he was kind of beaten down just talking about what he witnessed. So I wonder, how's the police department acting about all this right now? Yeah. And I would say that, you know, one of the things that I took away from that interview is that, you know, it was a really distressing situation. It was a very upsetting situation. And I think people there didn't really know what to do. You know, you're standing off to the street. You see this this fight happening. You see police, you know, saying. For someone to comply, do you get involved? Do you not get involved? Do you take video? Is this a situation where somebody needs help? And I think that there's just a lot of processing that, you know, I talked with a woman who works nearby today, and she told me, too, that she felt she needed to do the right thing by releasing the video that she shot. She didn't want to be involved. She didn't want to be named, but she wanted to share the video. So clearly this is sitting with people. Yeah, boy, Fox 13's Dan Griffin walking us through it. So I always like to kind of ask you, what am I not asking you? Because you've been doing a deep dive on this. And sometimes when I'm sitting up here, I don't have all the places that your mind may wander when you're doing this story for an hour. So I just wonder kind of like where you're at right now is you're preparing for the evening newscast. You guys can have a full report out. Like what's kind of sticking in your head right now? You know, I think for me, it's the gravity of an incident like this. We need to be able to talk with police and city officials about policy, and it needs to be made clear to the everyday citizen what is the policy, and is this within the guidelines of that policy? Is this standard practice? Just because it very well Could be one of those situations. And I've heard this term before used in law enforcement community where it's considered lawful, but awful. And this very well may be within those guidelines. But it's one of those things where we want to hear from city officials and we want to hear from Auburn police about this. We want to understand. And I think that's what I'm really curious about. And unfortunately, city officials and police leadership were unwilling to step in front of a camera and answer some of those hard questions today. Why Fox 13's Dan Griffin walking us through it, Appreciate you shedding some light on it and kind of walking us through the troubles, the concerns that we have when we can't get that official update when you obviously have a video shocking the conscience for some folks out there in the community. Dan, thank you. Thank you.