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Osamah Alsaidi, 21, was stopped for an unspecified violation on Madison Avenue shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 27, Passaic County Sheriff Richard Berdnik said.
Alsaidi "argued with the officer and then fled the scene in the vehicle," the sheriff said.
Officers spotted the vehicle outside the Grab & Go Deli and found Alsaidi inside the Getty Avenue store, Berdnik said.
They had to subdue him "after he tried physically resisting," the sheriff said.
Alsaidi refused to cooperate at headquarters and began hyperventilating, so officers summoned members of the Wayne Township Memorial First Aid Squad, Berdnik said.
He had to be subdued once again and then secured to a stretcher after arguing with the EMTs, who took him to St. Joseph's Hospital in Wayne for an evaluation, the sheriff said.
Alsaidi, who's charged with eluding and resisting arrest, was at the center of an incident in December 2020 that became the subject of a federal grand jury investigation.
Grand jurors in U.S. District Court in Newark returned an indictment this past January charging Officers Kevin Patino and Kendry Tineo-Restituyo with violating Alsaidi's civil rights.
Alsaidi, who's Arab-American, was walking with his hands in his pockets when the officers approached him, according to the indictment.
What they didn’t know was that area surveillance cameras were recording the incident (see below).
“Patino grabbed hold of the victim,” U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger said. “When the victim attempted to separate himself, Patino struck the victim in the face and body numerous times."
Tineo-Restituyo then picked the victim up and threw him to the ground, after which, Sellinger said, Patino repeatedly hit him.
Patino later filed incident reports that "contained numerous false statements and omissions, regarding the arrest of the victim," the U.S. attorney said.
Federal authorities previously said the officers falsely reported that Alsaidi approached them “screaming profanities” and “acting belligerent” and then punched Patino in the chest.
Alsaidi described the incident: “These officers came out of nowhere to block me from walking and beat me up on my own block. Then [another officer] assaults me at the hospital away from cameras and people to avoid witnesses."
Alsaidi, who was diagnosed with head trauma and a concussion, said he was “walking on my block towards my car to go to work” in the area of 1245 Madison Avenue around 12:30 a.m. when a city police car “pulled over to block me from walking with their car.” READ MORE....
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