Cleveland Police Chief Says Bodycam Shows Officers Didn’t Use Excessive Force

A Cleveland man, who had a run-in with police over the weekend, claims officers used excessive force.

But after reports an officer hit the man, Cleveland's police chief said that's not the case, and body cam video proves it.

Body cam shows a bloodied Jearld Bergin yelling at Cleveland police officers in a bait shop parking lot Saturday night.

“I don't want no G** d*** ambulance. I want to go home,” he says in the video.

Cleveland Police Chief Clint Stout said officers stopped Bergin because he'd just gotten into a fight and busted out someone's window at a nearby house.

“We've arrested him in the past for public drunk and resisting arrest,” Stout said.

The chief said that was the case again.

“He's just belligerent, will not listen to their commands,” he said.

In the video, an officer asks Bergin to sit down and he refuses and screams profanities at the officer. That’s when Bergin claims the officer punched him in the face.

It's hard to tell from one body cam video, even slowed down, and you can’t make out much from security cameras in the parking lot, but from another officer’s camera, Stout said you can see exactly what happened. He said it shows his officers took Bergin down but did not throw any punches to his face.

“The supervisor does a leg sweep on him, as another officer's grabbing him by the shoulders, and they bring him down on his backside. Not on his face, nobody punches him in the face,” Stout said.

Bergin said police edited the second video to cover up the punch and said they're trying to “lie their way out of it.”

In the video, you can hear Bergin tell a paramedic how got his injuries.

Paramedic: “You got a nice laceration above your eye.”
Bergin: “Guess what, I did that. I did that...I did all of this.”

Stout said Bergin went on to kick, scream and bite a paramedic.

The chief said Bergin was acting so erratically the local hospital wouldn't admit him and paramedics had to medically subdue him.

Stout said since paramedics used Ketamine to sedate him, Bergin had to be intubated. He said paramedics did not feel comfortable sending him to a Tulsa hospital by ambulance so he was flown by a medical helicopter.

The chief said Bergin was released from the hospital by about 8:00 Sunday morning.

Bergin said he has hired an attorney.