Retired officer 'hopes' video of Ogden police punching suspect was due to person resisting

Publish date: 2024-05-05

A retired police officer said when he saw video of Ogden police punching a person on the street, he wondered if that individual was resisting officers.

"Doing that work for 20 years, that's my first thought," said Ellis Maxwell, now a private detective who runs shieldbalance.com. "That's what I would hope was going on---this individual is not being compliant."

But Maxwell acknowledged the video taken on Saturday by a bystander, when two police officers in the 19-second clip were shown kneeling and throwing punches at someone on the ground on or near Washington Boulevard, does not show the suspect.

So, for now, it's unknown what if any threat there was to officers.

2News asked Maxwell what if the person were not resisting?

"Then we have a problem," he said, "because that (the punches) can't be going on."

There are many unknowns: where the person's hands were, whether the individual face down or face up, and what led to the confrontation.

Maxwell, who investigated the disappearance of Susan Powell, said police had other tools at their disposal.

He recounted a time, as an officer, when he had a man on the ground.

"The individual, he had his hands gripped," said Maxwell, and we had no idea what was in them, and we ended up on the ground with his hands underneath his chest, and he wouldn't give them up."

Maxwell said he "applied the taser" and it worked---the man was soon in cuffs.

If the person in Ogden had been fighting as the punches landed, the retired officer thinks, with a taser, "they could have gained compliance a little bit quicker."

He also said two weeks should be "sufficient" for a police department internal review.

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