WHARTON, Texas – Cellphone video posted online Wednesday shows a Wharton police officer using a Taser on a man repeatedly after he doesn’t follow the officer’s instructions to roll onto his stomach.
WATCH: Video of Wharton Tasing incident
On Sunday night, an officer responded to a disturbance call at the Wharton Inn. Cellphone video taken moments earlier shows a man, Oscar Dickenson, standing on top of a car, naked, taunting another man.
The cellphone video picks up again after the officer arrived and apparently used a Taser on Dickenson, who is lying on his back in front of the officer.
“This is the last time I’m going to tell you, roll over on your stomach now,” The officer yelled. “You’re going to get it again.”
In the video, the officer then tells the man recording to “put that away,” and the man stops recording. It appears the officer did not realize a second man was recording from a different angle.
Throughout the second, longer video, the officer tells Dickenson to roll over more than 30 times, and users a Taser on him at least six times.
Dickenson appears to attempt to roll over a few times, unsuccessfully. Otherwise, he just lays there, and repeats “officer, officer,” and yells out in pain.
“It felt like I was being shot,” Dickenson, who admitted using PCP that night, said Wednesday. “Every time it hit me, I would holler.”
The police department released a statement that only said a Taser was used on Dickenson. Family members said officers initially told them Dickenson was only hit once with the Taser. They said they learned the truth only when the second cellphone video was posted online Wednesday.
“You told me I was Tased one time,” Dickeson said. “You lied to me, Officer Lynch.”
“If it was one Tase, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” said Dickenson’s sister, Krystal. “It was the fact that it was repeated. That is the problem.”
“I haven’t fully seen the video because I refuse to as a mother,” Freda Jackson said. “It felt like he was being tortured like an animal.”
“The male was non-compliant and aggressively lunged towards another motel occupant,” Wharton police said. “The officer deployed a Taser to gain compliance of the male, for his safety and the safety of others. The male continued to be non-compliant until arrival of additional units, at which time the male was detained.”