A former assistant police chief has been suspended after shoving a handcuffed man onto a bed and punching him in the balls. Officer's in Illinois at the Evansville Police Department were investigating a wanted felon at a motel and broke down the door to find him on the phone in the bathroom. Body cam footage shows Sgt. Rob Hahn grab the man in the face before shoving him onto the bed in the motel.
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Then, as Hahn walks past the man he punches him in the balls. Take off the uniforms for a moment and play this scene back, what you will see is a person with a need to abuse his authority to feel powerful and engage in bullying. The arrested man eventually asks why he was punched in the balls but the officer denies it happened. A rather strange thing to do when you consider the whole incident was on body camera. Later on, Hahn must realize this because he reports the incident and turns himself into his superiors.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/update?src=hash">#update</a>: suspension approved by Merit Commission. <a href="https://t.co/Q9wz3JIqKd">https://t.co/Q9wz3JIqKd</a></p>— Tori Fater (@vrfater) <a href="https://twitter.com/vrfater/status/907331292848689152">September 11, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Hahn was given a five-day suspension without pay and he is now back on duty as a patrol sergeant. The abuse of power is disturbing and a good example of how body cameras can both keep police officers safe and also hold them accountable for their actions. It makes one wonder what else the man is willing to do if he is willing to make this small compromise now what might he do in the future?
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">EPD Sgt. Jason Cullum (spox) description of why Hahn was suspended. <a href="https://t.co/MTUqeE0c0l">pic.twitter.com/MTUqeE0c0l</a></p>— Tori Fater (@vrfater) <a href="https://twitter.com/vrfater/status/907338289920823298">September 11, 2017</a></blockquote>
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The suspect was ultimately taken to jail, there is no information regarding whether he is filing a lawsuit and no investigation was made into the other officers who witnessed the event.
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Why was the officer not arrested by the other officers for what was obviously an assault