

A second Georgia police officer was fired on Thursday, a day after cellphone videos emerged showing one of the officers punching a man who had his hands up and the other kicking the man in the head once he was handcuffed on the ground.
The Gwinnett County Police Department said Thursday afternoon that Master Police Officer Robert McDonald violated department policy and the law. Video showed McDonald assaulting Demetrius Bryan Hollins while assisting a supervisor who had called for backup during a traffic stop about 4pm on Wednesday.
Several hours later, police said that supervisor, Sgt. Michael Bongiovanni, had also been fired after a second video surfaced of him punching Hollins in the face as Hollins put his hands in the air.
Hollins, still bloodied from the beating, spoke about the violent traffic stop in an interview with the Today show on Friday.
The 21-year-old college student said he had a run in with Bongiovanni before, so when he saw him pull him over, he tried to take out his phone to film the talk.
'It was so surreal,' Hollins said. 'He told me to step out of the car. Soon as I stepped out of the car with my hands up ...that's when he punched me in the face.'
In their report of the incident, Bongiovanni and McDonald said that Hollins did not have a license plate and that they tased him when he refused to get out of the car.
But Gwinnett County Police Chief A.A. 'Butch' Ayers said at a Thursday press conference that the video speaks for itself.
'The incident that was depicted upon that video was not mentioned or described in those reports. There is literally no excuse for behavior like this,' Ayers said.
The department has also opened criminal investigations into the behavior of the two officers. The results will be turned over to the county district attorney, who will decide whether to prosecute the two officers.