Police Claimed They ‘Lost’ Video of Officers Torturing Handcuffed Man with a Taser But That Was a Lie

 

When an individual is charged by police and there's no bystander video evidence, it's that person's word against the officer's.

In nearly all cases, courts will take the officer's word over the alleged criminal and as a result, countless innocent people have done time in prison.

Police also maintain control over body camera footage and as Aaron Maughan's case illustrates, if police claim the footage was lost, it's up to you to seek out it.

In 2017, Maughan admitted to eluding police and was taken into police custody while being one hundred pc compliant.

The fact that he complied with the officer's orders however, was no defense against his subsequent torture.

Video, which was thought to be "Lost" now shows what happened while Maughan was taken into custody and as a result, the fees - that he did time in jail for - were dropped.

According to police, Maughan eluded them during a traffic stop in an off-road pursuit but was found sleeping outside a shop subsequent morning.

What happened after cops Christian Ensley and Brett Marsden found him is now the topic of a lawsuit against the Superior local department .

"As Marsden secured the handcuffs on Maughan's wrists, Ensley unholstered his taser. Marsden handcuffed Maughan, and said,"He's good.

" Maughan was in handcuffs and completely subdued.

Ensley started yelling at Maughan to roll over onto his back.

Maughan couldn't move because Marsden was sitting on his back.

"Tasing a subdued handcuffed subject was unnecessary and excessive and amounts to the crime of assault by Ensley abetted by Marsden."

As the video shows, the utilization of force by the officers was so over the highest that a bystander asked them to prevent .

Instead of stopping Ensley threatened the bystander.

Maughan would later plead guilty to eluding police and spent two years in jail for it.

For some reason a year after Maughan was sentenced to prison, the Superior local department hit him with new charges for an equivalent incident.

This time he was facing "Resisting" charges.

'As the video below clearly shows Maughan was the victim of an assault and wasn't resisting within the least.

This is likely why the video was reported "Lost" by the department when Maughan sought to get it.

"Superior local department officials, presumably Ensley, told the prosecutor that there was no because the 'disk had crashed.' From our prior dealings with the Superior local department , we all know that each one OBC is stored on two separate servers that mirror one another ," consistent with the notice of claim written by Maughan's attorney.

"We also checked the Town of Superior council minutes for last year and located no indication that the SPD ever reported the disk crashed or sought funds to repair or replace the disc drive . We believe SPD has the OBC or has access thereto , but fully shall investigate this issue once we litigate this case."

In other words, these criminal cops simply lied and claimed the video was lost when actually , it had been right where it had been alleged to be.

Once the video was produced, the fees against Maughan were dropped.

On top of the very fact that police claimed to possess lost the video, they also falsified the report from that day and made no mention of the utilization of force.

ABC15 obtained an apparently undisclosed police report authored by Ensley that shows he wrote a series of false statements about the facts of the arrest and his use of force.

Ensley claimed they struggled with Maughan for "a few minutes" which they weren't ready to handcuff him until after he tasered him.

Maughan was approached and handcuffed within 35 seconds.

The taser was also deployed after he was handcuffed and Officer Marsden told Ensley that Maughan was "Good," meaning handcuffed.

According to the report, Ensley features a long and troubled career in enforcement having been fired or investigated in a minimum of six departments.

Only thanks to the very fact that Maughan's attorneys knew about the video is Maughan now a free man.

Days before the report from ABC15, the fees against Maughan were dropped.

"Apparently, the sudden emergence of the video also changed the Pinal County Attorney's view of the case. Last week, after ABC15 sought comment from the Pinal County Attorney's Office about its story, all the fees against Maughan were dismissed," the notice of claim said.