A Southern California man videotaped being punched and kicked by sheriff’s deputies after a chase involving an allegedly stolen horse on Monday said that he feared for his life during the violent arrest that was recorded by a television news helicopter.
“I thought I was being beaten to death,” Francis Pusok, 30, told KNBC-TV. “I was wondering: ‘When is it going to stop?’”
Pusok, still showing a black eye and other marks allegedly from the beating, sat with his girlfriend for the interview the day after he was released from a San Bernardino County jail.
He said he was still feeling the effects four days later.
“The beating might have stopped, but the pain never stopped,” Pusok said. “I can still feel the pain.”
Pusok’s arrest has led to an FBI civil rights investigation and 10 deputies being placed on leave pending an internal investigation.
San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon last week said that the video “disturbed and troubled” him and appeared to show an excessive use of force.
Pusok reportedly fled by car and then on the horse in the desert while deputies chased him.
They had tried to serve a search warrant in an identity theft investigation.
He said that once he was subdued he did not resist.
However, deputies were “hitting me in every place that they could hit me, anywhere and everywhere,” Pusok said, even after his hands and feet were in cuffs and shackles.
While his family has said they planned a lawsuit, Pusok said he does not “want a nickel” from the beating.
“I just want peace,” he said. “I want to be left alone. I want to go about my life.”
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