Joshua Radwan, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, just wouldn't shut up during a 2006 traffic stop in Laguna Niguel, which devolved into his being arrested, tased and hog-tied before the real horror began in a local jail cell.
The entire incident makes one wonder if Orange County Sheriff's deputies used excessive force on the suspect. What prompts that fear? The deputies' own video of the arrest and jailing.
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The Orange County Register obtained the video above, and veteran reporter Tony Saavedra quite poetically sets the discussion table.
The cops called him uncooperative.
But Joshua Radwan just wouldn't shut up.
He kept asking Orange County sheriff's deputies why they were searching him, then why they were hurting him. Finally, his questions turned to screams of pain.
His cries reverberated on a dark street in Laguna Niguel late Dec. 23, 2006, and off the walls of the Orange County Jail as the clock ticked into Christmas Eve.
Key video moments:
- At the 3:35 mark: Radwan, who is handcuffed, has his face pushed into the hood of a sheriff's cruiser.
- 5:07: He is pulled off the hood (and camera) and tased, his howls of pain echoing into the night.
- 13:13: After being placed in leg irons and painfully dragged and then carried into a jail cell, Radwan's shoulder is dislocated by deputies holding him on the floor and removing his clothing.
- 13:34: A concerned deputy is heard telling the motionless Radwan, moaning in agonizing pain, “If you don't follow directions, you are going to be tased again.”
Radwan's crime: possessing three ornamental knives in
his SUV in what deputies alleged was a violation of a court restraining
order. The knives were gifts for his father, according to the suspect.
He has sued the county and six deputies,
alleging excessive force and misrepresenting the facts to avoid
discipline and civil action. The case is awaiting trial in federal court.
Sheriff's officials declined to comment on the case with the Register.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.