A North Carolina police sergeant and a former deputy have been charged with assaulting a man during a violent 2022 arrest.
Lincoln County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Alden Sutton was charged with simple assault, The Charlotte Observer reported Thursday. Former sheriff's deputy Tyler Thompson, who was fired in August, was charged with assault inflicting serious injury after a months-long investigation by state officials.
Body camera footage released last year showed Thompson punching, choking, and using a Taser on Barry Spencer Green during the May 28 arrest, the newspaper reported. Officers had confronted Green in his front yard after an alleged road rage incident. Green was arrested for driving while impaired, resisting arrest and assaulting an officer, according to the sheriff's office.
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Sutton is shown on body camera footage grabbing Green by the neck. Sutton and Thompson were suspended last year pending an internal investigation into the use of force.
Thompson has said he is not a "hothead" and asserted he is a whistleblower for going to state officials to ask for an investigation of the incident. Lincoln County Sheriff Bill Beam told the news station WSOC-TV that Thompson "beat (Green's) eyes shut."
