HOUSTON – The Houston Police Dept. is investigating claims that an officer assaulted a man while wrongly detaining him.
Kevin Cooper, the alleged victim, said an unmarked pickup truck pulled up next to him outside Swaggers Lounge in southwest Houston Sunday, where he was celebrating his wife's birthday.
"A (uniformed) HPD officer jumped out the truck," Cooper said. "He said to turn around and put my hands behind my back." Now handcuffed, Cooper said he refused orders to sit on the ground because he was wearing formal attire. He claims he instead asked to sit in one of the arriving units.
"So he slung me down to the ground," Cooper said. "I was completely humiliated beyond reason."
"A lot of people that were there," Cooper's wife Deborah Wadsworth said. "Friends, family, very close friends, they all were watching this. It was completely embarrassing."
Cooper said after a few minutes, the officers uncuffed him and took off.
"The (officers) found out that I was the wrong person that they were looking for," Cooper said.
"I heard (officers) say they were looking for a white male and a white female," Wadsworth said. "Well, my husband's not white."
Cooper said he had to call 911 himself after officers left him bloodied with injuries to his ankle and back. Cooper said, despite repeated requests, he never received an explanation or any documentation of his brief detainment.
He said it wasn't until the next morning that he learned the name of the officer who allegedly sent him to the hospital.
The Houston Police Dept. wouldn't provide details but said its Internal Affairs Dept. is now investigating Cooper's claims about the officer's conduct.