Najee Rivera (23) was arrested a year and half ago by Philadelphia police officers Kevin Robinson, a six year veteran of the force and Sean McKnight, a seven year veteran of the force, both of the 25th Police District. They arrested the 23-year-old because he didn’t stop when they demanded him to, instead he tried to escape. When the police eventually caught him, the 23-year-old driver attacked them. That was the official story. But then, a few days ago, a video from surveillance camera was found and it completely shifts the focus of the story towards police officers, showing the two cops brutally beating Rivera who can be heard screaming in pain.
Right after the arrest, officers filed the paperwork so their version of the story was taken as a fact.
Robinson and McKnight said they tried to pull over Rivera for running a stop sign on his scooter near Seventh and Cambria Streets in Fairhill. They existed the patrol car, but Rivera got scared and tried to flee from the police. A few minutes later they saw him crashing and falling from his scooter on North Six. When they caught up with Rivera, he slammed Robinson against a brick wall and tried to pull McKnight’s baton from his hand.
All of these statements were proven false after the surveillance video above came out.
The beginning of the story is correct, they did pull Rivera over, and he fled when they got out of their service vehicle with batons in hand. The officers chased him, but they didn’t turn the lights or sirens.
The video shows them knocking Rivera from his scooter on the 2700 block North Sixth, then beating him aggressively with fists and batons. He can be heard screaming for help in the video.
After the beating, they handcuffed him and left him a while to bleed.
He wasn’t resisting the officers nor did he engage in any aggressive act. He ended up with fractured orbital bone and numerous head, facial and body injuries.
Rivera was taken to the local hospital, and while he was lying there the two Philadelphia officers filed the paperwork and gave statements that led to false arrest of Rivera.
The 23-year-old had a juvenile record, which made the Robinson’s and McKnight’s story legit, even though this was his first arrest as an adult.
Rivera’s girlfriend found this surveillance video, at a barber shop-auto detailing business on the block.
After this video came out officers were charged with aggravated assault, conspiracy, recklessly endangering another person, false reports, obstructing administration law and similar crimes.
