Video shows violence erupt between Paterson cop and man in dispute

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In a narrow city apartment building, with at least one police officer looking on, a Paterson father engaged in a loud, profanity-laced cellphone conversation, expressing his anger and frustration over not being allowed to see his young children.

For more than two minutes, the officer — whose name has not been made public — stayed away from the agitated man, seemingly employing de-escalation techniques that are supposed to prevent physical confrontations between cops and citizens.

But in a matter of moments, the tense situation erupted in violence — a scuffle seemingly initiated by another police officer at the scene who hit the father and later kneed the man in the face while he was sitting on the floor of the hallway with his wrists handcuffed behind his back, the video shows.

Mayor Andre Sayegh on Wednesday night made public the video that was recorded by the body camera of the officer who tried to calm the angry father in the May 26 confrontation. About two weeks after the incident, authorities arrested the other cop, 44-year-old Spencer Finch, an 18-year veteran of the Paterson Police Department, and charged him with assault, official misconduct and trying to conceal his actions by filing a false police report.

The mayor said he decided to release the video after conferring with his municipal law director, Aymen Aboushi, an attorney who prior to taking the city job had filed in his private practice five federal civil rights lawsuits accusing Paterson police officers of using excessive force against the public.

“That’s why we pushed for body cameras, so people could see for themselves what happened,” Sayegh said on Thursday morning of his decision to release the video.

Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes, who filed the criminal charges against Finch, did not respond to two messages from a reporter asking if she supported Sayegh’s release of the video.