2 Men Accuse Park Police of Using Excessive Force, Racial and Gay Slurs

Two men are accusing U.S. Park Police officers of excessive force during a recent traffic stop.

Shortly after midnight on Monday, March 28, Park Police pulled over a van in the 3000 block of 9th Street SE because it was missing a tag and a headlight.

The two men in the van, who are African-American, said officers used racial and homophobic slurs and beat and tazed them.

The driver, 50-year-old John Davis, said he was handcuffed and tazed twice in his back.

"He did it like several times. He hit me several times, man and I thought I was going to die. I lost my breath. I passed out," Davis told News4's Pat Collins.

However, police said they used a Taser on Davis in order to get him into handcuffs.

"The driver was resisting so the officer told him if you keep resisting I'll taze you. The driver kept resisting so the officer tazed him," said U.S. Park Police Sgt. Anna Rose.

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Meanwhile, the passenger in the van, Timothy Cox, got out of the car and ran up to a relative's house. He said an officer chased him, tackled him and kneed him in the face.

Police said Cox took a cooler and hula hoop off the porch and threw them at the officer, and then grabbed the officer by the genitals, which prompted him to punch Cox in the eye.

Cox admitted to using PCP earlier that day, police said.

Both men were taken into custody and charged with assaulting a police officer. The charges were dropped, however, after they appeared in D.C. Superior Court.

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