Police Beating of Maryland Student Caught on Video

This from AOL News:

University of Maryland basketball games can be rowdy affairs.

In 2001, a disappointing loss compelled a mob of angry students to maraud through the streets, causing more than $500,000 in damage.

And on March 3 this year, after Maryland beat archrival Duke, the big win sent hundreds of celebrating students into the streets near the College Park campus. Police made 28 arrests as they tried to clear the streets of nearly 1,000 students.

Last month, [Prince George's County Police Chief Roberto] Hylton said the March 3 riot was "large, unruly and destructive" and noted that students were setting things on fire and removing street signs.

In a sworn statement, county police officer Sean McAleavey said McKenna and Donat "struck" other officers and their horses, "causing minor injuries." In a statement last month, university spokesman Millree Williams said "the post-game behavior of some students is inconsistent with the high standards -- in academics, attitudes and in behaviors -- that we have set at the University of Maryland College Park."

But students painted a different picture...

Without the video, this might have been a classic case of "he said, she said."But there is a video. And so the case against two University of Maryland students accused of attacking police after a basketball game last month was dropped after the footage showed county police beating one of those students repeatedly with a baton.

Now a new kind of accusation is being leveled, this one against the officers: police brutality. "The video shows the charging documents were nothing more than a cover, a fairy tale they made up to cover for the officers' misconduct," Christopher Griffiths, one of the students' lawyers, told The Washington Post. "The video shows gratuitous violence against a defenseless individual."

On April 9, a Prince George's County prosecutor dropped charges against 21-year-old John McKenna and 19-year-old Ben Donat. But for the Maryland police, the story doesn't end there. Prosecutors are launching a criminal investigation into the officers' actions, and the county police said it would conduct an internal review. Three officers have been suspended...