Global Courant
A police officer in Loveland, Colorado, was fired after allegedly beating a handcuffed woman who appeared to spit on him in a hospital exam room, authorities said.
In body camera footage from the May 20 incident shared Friday by the Loveland Police Department, the woman swears at Officer Russell Maranto as she is escorted to a seat. She is heard berating the officer, including a “piece of s—.” When the officer takes a piece of paper from her hand, she seems to get angrier.
“Hey, damn it, give it back to me, you damn piece of shit,” she says. “Hey, I can have it. Why can’t I have a piece of paper?”
The video shows the woman, identified as Angelia Hall, 59, spitting to the ground as she continues to demand that they return the piece of paper to her. She continues to yell before spitting at the officer.
In the video, Maranto punches the woman in the face. A second agent intervenes and steps between the two. The woman screams that she wants video of the officer who allegedly beat her.
“He punched me in the face,” she yells. “I want a video of that. I haven’t touched him. My hands are cuffed… I can’t even fight back.”
In a video statement Friday, Police Chief Tim Doran praised the second officer for intervening, saying the officers were “verbally harassed by excessive profanity and intermittent racial insults.” He said a supervisor was called to the examination room and the incident was immediately reported.
“Loveland, our police department is made up of courageous, respectful and honorable officers and we all agree that inappropriate behavior will never be tolerated or trivialized by your department,” he said.
The district attorney’s office is still considering criminal charges against 28-year-old Maranto, police said. Hall was charged with third-degree assault, police said.
At the time of the incident, Maranto had been with the department for less than a year. It is not clear if he has a lawyer who can speak on his behalf. The police union did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. Hall could not be contacted.
The police came under fire in 2020 when a now former officer injured an elderly woman with dementia during an arrest. The officer, Austin Hopp, pleaded guilty to charges related to the June 26, 2020 arrest of Karen Garner and was sentenced to five years in prison.
