Footage released on Tuesday shows the incident that resulted in a 20-day suspension without pay for a San Antonio police detective.
In the video, Detective David Pantoja is seen dragging a handcuffed Black man, Joshua Coney, through a street. The incident happened on Jan. 30 although Pantoja was suspended until six months later, in July. Footage of the encounter was released to KSAT this week.
Pantoja and fellow officer Robert Ferguson were both seen dragging Coney. Suspension paperwork indicates that Coney was “unnecessarily dragged” and denied medical services when he asked for them.
The 11-second clip shows officers dragging Coney in a seated position as he faces in the opposite direction.
“Detective Pantoja did not thoroughly understand the laws and ordinances which he was charged with enforcing when he issued the citation in question,” the paperwork says. An incident report written by Pantoja states that he and Ferguson were forced to drag Coney to the patrol vehicle after he made his body go limp.
He also said Coney “attempted to place both of his legs under the rear of my patrol vehicle as if he had been run over by police vehicle.”
Pantoja also issued Coney a misdemeanor citation for failing to show his ID when asked, although that is not a citable offense.
“Pantoja did not thoroughly understand the laws and ordinances which he was charged with enforcing when he issued the citation in question,” the paperwork said.
Ferguson also received a six-day suspension for his conduct during the incident.
Pantoja appealed the 20-day suspension one day after it went into effect but eventually agreed to the discipline. He has served with the San Antonio Police Department since 1996. Pantoja has been suspended from the department for being “rude, unprofessional and unreasonable” during traffic stops, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Both of the incidents happened in 2015 and resulted in a combined four-day suspension.
In one of the incidents, Pantoja accused a woman who failed to yield to an ambulance of possessing drugs in her vehicle and “possibly causing the death of the person in the ambulance.” In the other incident, Pantoja is said to have threatened to tow a person’s trailer “out of spite” and to issue a citation with “no merit,” records show.
