Cops in TA severely beat Arab grocer who doesn’t show ID — witnesses

Several people allege a case of severe police brutality against an Arab man, in Tel Aviv. Police say the man was resisting arrest and had attacked officers.

“Just now in front of City Hall,” Erez Krispin writes in a Facebook post, “an Arab supermarket worker goes outside to throw out the trash. He’s approached by a man in shorts who says, ‘Show me some ID.’

“‘The ID is inside. Who are you?'” Krispin says the supermarket worker replied.

“Before he even finishes speaking, he’s being beaten senseless,” he continues, “a beating like you’ve never seen, teeth flying through the air. The Arab is crushed.

“When an elderly woman asks they why they’re doing it, they yell at her, ‘Fuck off before we finish you too,” Krispin writes.

At that point, he continues, uniformed police arrived and continued to beat the man.

“I don’t really know if the Arab is alive; they threw what was left of him into the patrol car, not an ambulance, and drove off.”

He notes that there were many witnesses to the incident, as well as security camera and other footage.

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Another witness, Saguy Green, writes in a Facebook post that “dozens” of plainclothes and riot police descended on the man, “a worker at the Yuda Supermarket.”

Green’s post, which includes a picture of officers pinning down the man, quotes another employee at the supermarket who says that he was beaten because he didn’t show the police his ID.

“Not that there’s any comfort of hope in that, but many in the crowd sprung to his aid and protested the endless violence against him, and filmed the cops,” she writes.

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A spokeswoman for the Israel Police tells The Times of Israel that the man had resisted arrest and attacked officers, and that the investigation was ongoing.

“There is nothing at all to add,” she says, without saying what the man is suspected of. “The circumstances are still under investigation. Refusal to be detained and to submit to a search is illegal.”

— Judah Ari Gross contributed