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Cop Filmed Hitting Man Who Questioned Car Search [VIDEO]

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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A Saratoga, N.Y. County police sergeant has been suspended without pay after a video surfaced showing him striking a man and taking his car keys after the man resisted demands to search his vehicle.

Sgt. Shawn Glans confronted Adam Roberts and Colin Fitch as they were returning to Fitch’s car after a party early Friday in Halfmoon, a town just north of Albany.

Glans stopped the pair after spotting a .22-caliber rifle in Fitch’s backseat, Roberts told the website Photography is Not a Crime, which collects videos of citizens filming the police.

Glans wanted to search the car, but Fitch resisted, saying he had done nothing wrong.

Video of the encounter begins as Fitch is asking Glans, who was not aware that he was being filmed, why he wanted to search the car.

“It’s just not right, that you just want to search my car for no reason,” Fitch says.

“We’ll get a fucking search warrant, alright,” Glans responds. “You want to do that?”

“Let me see your fucking keys,” Glans demands.

“Why?” Fitch asks.

“I’m going to search your fucking car, that’s why,” Glans says.

“You can’t do that,” says Fitch.

“You want to fucking resist?” Glans asks as he strikes Fitch in the back of the head while grabbing his car keys.

The officer tosses the keys to another officer, who is off camera, instructing “search the fucking car.”

“If you have nothing to hide in there, we’re just going to check and be on our fucking merry way. Understand? Asshole,” Glans says.

“That was intense,” says Roberts, who was secretly recording the encounter.

“You like that, huh? I can get a lot more intense,” Glans brags.

“Will you slap me around?” Roberts asks the officer.

“Yeah, I’ll rip your fucking head off and shit down your neck,” Glans answers.

After video of the incident went viral on LiveLeak.com and Photography is Not a Crime, Glans was suspended without pay. Fitch produced a receipt for the gun, and the pair was released without charge.

“The Sheriff’s Office has identified and interviewed all parties involved in the interaction and as a result the member involved has been suspended without pay effective immediately pending the outcome of the investigation and possible disciplinary action,” Saratoaa County police chief Richard Castle said in a statement released Saturday.

Contacted by the Albany Times-Union, Glans said he would have only acted differently if he’d have known he was being filmed.

“You saw the video. It doesn’t look good,” Glans told the Times-Union. “I’m all about doing the right thing. I had to go to that point because of the factors that came into play. There was a gun that was involved (that) I spotted in the vehicle.”

“I was concerned. It was a public safety issue,” Glans told the paper. “If I had to do it all over again…I’d probably do the same thing. If I knew the camera was there, no, because it does look bad.”

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