Michigan man: I needed eye surgery after police beating

EASTPOINTE, Mich. – Activists demanded the firing Tuesday of five suburban Detroit officers after a drunken driver said he was arrested, restrained at a police station and repeatedly punched in the head until he was “knocked out.”

Video of the August 2015 incident was aired Monday on WJBK-TV (http://bit.ly/2h6Oe7K ).

“The guy hit me so many times, it made me cry once I seen the tape,” Frankie Taylor told the TV station.

Taylor, who is black, is suing five officers and the Eastpointe police chief, alleging excessive force. He said he needed eye surgery after the beating.

The video shows five officers trying to restrain Taylor in a chair while one of them strikes him and repeatedly says, “stop resisting.” In a filing in federal court, attorneys for the suburb said any force was reasonable, not illegal.

“I was knocked out … I don’t feel like I was a threat to the officers to the point that they had to hit me until I was unconscious,” Taylor said.

Public Safety Director John McNeilance declined to comment. Taylor subsequently pleaded no contest to resisting police and drunken driving.

A Detroit pastor, the Rev. W.J. Rideout III, and others want the officers dismissed.

“It’s clear that this young man’s civil rights were violated by these police officers,” Rideout told The Detroit News.

Rideout and another activist are scheduled to meet with McNeilance on Wednesday, according to a news release the activists sent Tuesday evening.