DENVER — A federal lawsuit filed Friday claims that a Denver police officer beat and repeatedly tased a man at a Denver hotel.
Nicholas Munden said he lost his job because he was wrongly charged with assaulting a police officer and that he's still dealing with physical injuries stemming from the assault.
Jon Topolewski, Munden's lawyer, said on May 9 police were called to the Denver Art Hotel, where Munden had a reservation. Topolewski said that another guest had a complaint about a comment that Munden made.
Surveillance video provided by Topolewski shows a DPD police officer, who Topolewski said is Michael Pineda, confronting Munden at the hotel.
The video then shows the officer pulling out his baton and hitting Munden with it several times. After the two men struggle for a bit, there's a stand-off for about 45 seconds, after which the officer fires his taser at Munden. Several officers then take Munden into custody.
According to Topolewski, Munden was unarmed and non-threatening at the time and that this was a clear and disturbing case of excessive force.
"(Munden) suffered significantly physically and, obviously, the psychological impact of somebody whose supposed to be there protecting people causing you this degree of harm, certainly psychologically has been an issue for him," Topolewski said.
Court records show the assault charges against Munden were later dropped.
A few months after the incident at the hotel, Officer Pineda was arrested for felony theft, charged with billing for hours that he didn't work for off-duty assignments.
Munden's lawyer said Pineda was under investigation for that theft at the time of the hotel incident.
Pineda's trial on the theft charge is scheduled for October.
DPD declined to comment because of the pending lawsuit.
>VIDEO BELOW: Raw footage of the alleged assault.
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