A suspended Springfield, Mass., police officer, Gregg Bigda, is now facing federal charges that he beat up a 14-year-old Latino boy and another teenager while they were under arrest. He also allegedly spat on one of the young boys and told him, “Welcome to the white man’s world,” according to the indictment.
Bigda and Steven Vigneault, a narcotics detective who resigned from the department in 2016, were charged with excessive force on Wednesday morning in relation to the February 2016 arrest of a group of teens suspected of stealing an undercover police vehicle, according to MassLive.com.
While the physical assault against the teens was not captured on video, a 30-minute surveillance video recording uploaded on YouTube features Bigda threatening to beat up one of the boys, unleash the K-9 dogs on him, and “crush your skull.”
In the video, he also threatened to plant drugs on one of the teenagers. “I’m not hampered by the f***ing truth ’cause I don’t give a f***!” Bigda is heard saying. “People like you belong in jail. I’ll charge you with whatever. I’ll stick a f***ing kilo of coke in your pocket and put you away for 15 years.”
