SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – An intense incident caught on-camera involving the San Diego Police Department's bike team in the Gaslamp late Saturday night.
Before all that happened, police said they responded to a fight on 5th Avenue and F Street.
When they got there, police said they saw three men running away.
"We ended up giving chase on a male with a white shirt and blue jeans as you see in a video that was posted online,” Captain Ryan Hallahan of SDPD - Central Division said.
The video doesn't show what happened before but it shows officers rushing a man, him going to the ground, officers grabbing then dragging him then later handcuffing him.
ABC 10News asked Hallahan if there was anything in his mind as the captain of the Central Division that seemed excessive in the apprehension of the man.
"When you view the camera and the view of it, the force used was to overcome the movement or non-movement,” Hallahan said.
"There was a hand on the head when he was coming down but no time per the BWC - body-owns cameras - was there any pushing or hitting on the ground."
The captain said -other angles - videos from body worn cameras show the man resisting.
At this point, the department has not released those videos.
Kevin LaChapelle’s ex-El Cajon police and a criminal justice professor.
We asked him to review the video which he said the number of officers did seem a little intense.
"If they think the person is maybe armed, sometimes they come in heavy like that to kind of get a surprise on them so that they can take control of the situation before it escalates. But, I think for most reasonable people would look at that and say, 'Oh, that seems a little excessive,” LaChapelle said.
The person that took the video didn't want to be on camera but tells us the man seemed like he didn't know what was happening.
Police told ABC 10News they believe he did.
After they detained him,a witness to that original fight couldn't identify him as being involved.
Police say the man in the video was cited for obstruction and delaying an officer in the performance of their duty.
He was later released.
Hallahan said any time there is a video like this; they review it and everything else and make corrections if needed.
"If we have a bad apple in our organization, we want to identify that and fix that problem,” Hallahan said. “We don't have that situation with our bike team."
