A cop in Orlando who was caught on tape berating and seemingly taunting a man during a domestic disturbance call is now under investigation and off patrol duty, officials said.
The four-minute video, posted last month on YouTube by Ryan Romasco, shows an aggravated Officer Jose Sanchez telling the man to get out of his truck and walk to a nearby hotel. But Romasco is more concerned with why Sanchez apparently “slammed” the door on him.
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Sanchez replied. “You want me to call my supervisor so you can f—— tell him I slammed the door on your hand? Get out of the car, get out of the car, get out of the car, get out of the car and walk to the hotel, bitch!”
A startled Romasco – who even said in the clip, “Wow man, this is crazy!” — then asked Sanchez to move away from the car door so he can exit. But the bullying cop continues cursing at him, calling Romasco a “little p—-.”
After demanding that he exit the truck, Sanchez continues to block the doorway before threatening to arrest him on charges of battery on a law enforcement officer if he tried to pass him.
“You are going nowhere,” Sanchez said. “If you f—– try to pass me motherf—–, I will f—ing take you in for battery LEO (law enforcement officer), bro. I will ruin your s—.”
Romasco reminds the officer that he had just told the man to exit the vehicle and walk.
“Now if I go past you, you’re going to arrest me for f—— battery?” Romasco said.
Romasco was working on a construction job with his father when they got into an argument and the cops were called, he later told the Orlando Sentinel. He began recording the encounter with police when it got heated and the recording stopped before it ended because his phone’s memory was full.
“They were just trying to punk me out,” he told the newspaper. “They were trying to instigate me.”
Romasco, who lived in West Palm Beach, but has since moved to Arkansas, said he thought Sanchez was on a “power trip.”
“I was thinking that if he wasn’t wearing that badge and uniform, I would like to give him a piece of my mind,” he told the paper.
No arrests were made during the incident. The video, which was posted on Jan. 3, has been viewed more than 35,000 times, but picked up steam over the weekend, according to the newspaper.
Sanchez, an officer with the department since 2007, has since been reassigned to the airport division at the Orlando International Airport.