New video shows officer tasing man on Oakland shoreline

OAKLAND, Calif. - Body camera video, newly surfaced as part of a civil rights lawsuit, shows the moments when an East Bay Regional Park police officer used a Taser on an unarmed man who is now in a coma in a situation that started over expired car tags. 

The video shows park police officer Jonathan Knea yelling at Deonte Charles Faison to "Get down!" and stop running after he began questioning about his expired tags on April 5 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline in Oakland. 

The suit was amended on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Northern California and alleges that using a Taser in water violates basic officer training that says the tool must not be used when a person is located in water, mud or marsh.

"It naturally follows that any officer who intentionally uses a Taser on a person who is near and/or standing in water must be considered to be showing deliberate indifference for human life," wrote Adante Pointer, who is co-representing Faison. 

The suit names Knea personally, the East Bay Regional Park District, and Alameda County, as a deputy sheriff arrived at the scene that day as well. 

In court documents, attorneys Noah Blechman and John Swafford, who are representing Alameda County, denied all the allegations. When the suit was first filed in April, the park district and county officials did not want to comment because of potential litigation. 

Park district spokesman Jason Traverso reiterated that on Tuesday, adding, "Our hearts go out to Mr. Faison and his family." 

 Authorities had previously told KTVU that Faison is a convicted felon with a warrant. 

Court records show Faison was on probation after pleading no contest in a 2021 robbery case. That probation appears to have been revoked in early 2023, though it was not immediately clear whether that continued to be the case when officers contacted him, the Bay Area News Group reported.  

But all that, his family and attorneys said, is irrelevant and the use of force over expired car tags is over the top and unlawful. 

Pointer said that police didn't know any of Faison's history when they stopped him.

"They escalated this situation," Pointer said. "It's either submit or die. They used potentially deadly force for a minor traffic stop." 

On the day in question, Faison had gone to the beach with a friend after grabbing food at Wendy's, when Knea spotted that the car they were in had expired tags.

Knea approached them and had the two sit on their car's bumper.

Faison told the officer that he hadn't been driving the car, and gave the officer a fake name, which Knea couldn't find in the system.

Knea didn't question Faison's friend, who is white, about anything, the lawsuit states. She also gave  police a fake name. 

Faison started to get nervous about being "harrassed in the park" for roughly 20 minutes, according to the suit.

More police officers started to arrive and Knea pulled a gun on Faison, the lawsuit states.

"Scared for his life," Faison ran away from the officers toward the estuary.

Without "any announcement and failing to establish any communication," Knea deployed a taser into Faison's back, according to the bodycamera video and lawsuit. 

Faison collapsed but stumbled into the water.

When he was knee-deep in the bay, Knea again used electric force on Faison's back, the video shows. 

The Taser sting remained attached to Faison's back while he was in the water. 

The officers saw Faison screaming and "fighting for his life" but didn't do anything to help him, the lawsuit states.

An Alameda County Sheriff's deputy, who was called to the scene, noted in his report that Faison was in the water for 40 minutes. 

The deputy also noted that officers tried to call Oakland police, firefighters and the Coast Guard for help but "all water rescue resources were unavailable" at the time. 

Eventually, Faison fell unconscious.

Knea had taken off for what seemed like an hour, and was not present when Faison was pulled from the water, the lawsuit states.

About an hour after he was shocked with the stun gun, Faison was eventually taken to the hospital, according to the lawsuit. 

But the misconduct didn't end there, the lawsuit alleges; Knea didn't tell the whole story to the doctors. 

The officers "failed to communicate to hospital personnel" that Faison had been stunned multiple times "in an attempt to conceal the true nature of what happened to him and promote the false narrative that Deontae had simply drowned," the lawsuit alleges. 

To this date, Faison remains in a coma.