Charges dropped against man beaten by police

BROOKLYN (WABC) -- Charges were formally dismissed on Wednesday against a homeless man arrested after a beating from police officers that was caught on video.

Taking a powerful blow to his head, Ehud Halevy, by his own admission, was resisting arrest by police as seen in surveillance video. But the pummeling he received from the officer was not warranted, he said.

"I didn't hit the cop. I didn't threaten to hit him," Halevy said.

Halevy had been sleeping at the Alternative Learning Institute for Young Adults in Crown Heights on October 8. The centers' rabbi claims Halevy was allowed to spend the night there, but someone called the police.

First waking Halevy, the officers then attempt to arrest him on trespassing charges.

"I told him I had a right, permission to stay where I am. He wouldn't listen. I swore at him. He tried handcuffing me. I pulled my arm away. That's when he started beating me up," he said.

It was a situation that some believe should never have escalated to the brutal point where even a second officer is seen on the video moving in, swinging her night stick repeatedly.

"What happened that night demonstrated unjustified excessive force by the two police officers," defense attorney Norman Seigel said.

Earlier this week Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, issued a brief statement saying that after reviewing the evidence he decided to dismiss the charges against Halevy, setting up this morning's court appearance where the charges were formally dropped.

"I applaud the district attorney. I applaud the police commissioner for taking action immediately. He understood this is not the way we train our police officers when he saw the video," State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said.

The officers are under investigation by the New York Police Department's internal affairs unit and the district attorney's office.

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