BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A police
officer is caught on camera by a TV news camera person early Thanksgiving Day
hitting a man with a baton.
Now, that officer is off the job and suspended
without pay.
Night stick in hand, Officer
Corey Krug walks down a Buffalo street early Thanksgiving morning confronting a
man about to get into a fight.
Other officers rush over as
Krug tells the man on the ground to get up. The video shows Krug striking the
man on the ground with his baton several times.
Those other officers are
telling Krug he is being recorded on camera.
A news photographer with 7
Eyewitness News was on scene and documented the altercation. He was following
police officers on the job when he saw Krug hitting the man and then letting
him walk away.
"They're telling this guy
to walk away, so apparently, he did nothing," said Daire Irwin, an
attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union.
He says in a situation like
this, police officers would typically charge someone with a crime, but in this
case, there was no arrest.
"I absolutely,
categorically believe his civil rights were violated," Irwin said.
After 7 Eyewitness News showed
the tape to Buffalo Police Commissioner Dan Derenda, Krug was suspended
indefinitely without pay.
Derenda says he's reached out
to both the FBI and the US Attorney's Office for a possible investigation into
civil rights violations.
The police department is also
doing its own investigation.
"I really can't comment on
an internal investigation,” Derenda said. “What I will say is as it has shown,
this administration takes inappropriate behavior very seriously and appropriate
action was taken in each and every case."
7 Eyewitness News reports that
Krug joins a list of at least 15 Buffalo police officers who have been charged,
convicted or suspended since 2012.
The latest was Officer John
Cirruli, who was convicted on civil rights violations after being caught on
camera in April hitting and kicking John Willett.
Last year, Krug was named in a
federal civil rights lawsuit from a 2010 arrest.
It's unclear where that case
stands in federal court.
We've also discovered from a
police source, Corey Krug is a relative of Officer Raymond Krug, who was
charged with federal civil rights violations from a 2009 arrest.
"The vast majority of
officers do the right thing each and every day,” Derenda said. “When officers
don't do the right thing across the line, there's consequences, as we've shown
in the past, we do what we have to do to take necessary action."
