Video Of Cop Beating An Elderly Man In Ohio Goes Viral, Has People Livid

HAMERSVILLE, Ohio (FOX19) - Video of a fight between a police officer and a man is circulating on social media. Now, Hamersville police are launching an internal investigation.

Shared thousands of times on Facebook, the video shows an unidentified officer fighting and punching a man in the middle of Highway 125.

The video does not accurately portray the situation, according to Hamersville Police Chief Guy Sutton.

The chief says the man seen in the video was not part of the initial traffic stop made by the officer. The man and another person “interjected themselves” into the situation, Sutton says.

As the video plays, the officer and the man sprawl on the ground. Bystanders are heard yelling the man “just had heart surgery.”

The officer pulled a stun gun but Sutton says it was not used on the man because of the surgery.

The man is Carl Hampton, whose wife, Tammy, says her niece had been pulled over for overly tinted windows. She wasn’t driving with a license, Tammy says, so she showed up to drive the car.

Tammy claims she tried speaking with police about taking the car home when the situation escalated.

“I was walking away, and they come up behind me and grab me and start dragging me back towards their car,” she said, adding the officers cuffed her, kicked her in the legs, and told her she was being arrested for resisting arrest.

That’s when Carl walked up, she says, trying to prevail upon the police to “get your hands off my wife,” as he says in the video.

Carls says his doctors, “told me, do not get exerted. Do not do anything physical. Do not lift a gallon of milk.”

Carl was taken into custody, Sutton says. He says his officer “didn’t leave any marks on the guy.

Carl was later released and is facing two preliminary charges of obstruction and resisting.

The Hamptons say they will pursue legal action against the police department.