SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A California man has filed a lawsuit against California sheriff's officials after surveillance video circulated widely online showed deputies beating him with batons as he lay on the ground crying out in pain.
Stanislav Petrov says in the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court that he had his hands out ready to be handcuffed when Alameda County sheriff's deputies began hitting him with steel batons last November. Deputies had chased Petrov into San Francisco after spotting him in a stolen vehicle.
San Francisco prosecutors in May charged two deputies with assaulting Petrov.
The lawsuit says deputies took photos of a bleeding Petrov as a trophy and stole his gold chain and money and gave them to witnesses to buy their silence.
A call to a sheriff's spokesman was not immediately returned.
