It was a police beating that began like so many others: Early one morning in August 2018, Mohamed Sayem, a Black man, was asleep in his car when Orange County sheriff’s deputies approached.

When it was over, Sayem was bloodied and splayed on the pavement of a parking lot in Stanton. In his report on the encounter, Deputy Michael Devitt wrote he had forcibly subdued Sayem because the man tried to grab him during the arrest. Sayem was charged with resisting arrest — a felony.

The incident garnered little attention until months later, when Sayem’s attorney, Asst. O.C. Public Defender Scott Sanders, released video footage of the beating. In it, Devitt is seen punching Sayem in the face several times before taking him to the ground.

What it did not appear to show was Sayem trying to grab the deputy.

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