A Phoenix cop who was fired after chasing a teen into a convenience store at gunpoint and stomping his teeth in because he was not “obeying commands” is asking for his job back.
The incident, which took place last December, was caught on a surveillance video, which is the only reason Detective Kevin McGowan was fired in the first place.
But now he’s claiming that there’s more to the story that we haven’t seen.
However, the video shows 18-year-old Patrick D’Labik raising his arms and getting down on the floor as McGowan approaches him, clearly complying with the cop’s orders.
But McGowan wanted to teach him a lesson, so he stomped down on the teen’s head hard, smashing his teeth against the floor, causing several to fall out.
According to ABC 15:
“I just tasted the blood,” said 18-year-old Patrick D’Labik, remembering the moment Detective Kevin McGowan stomped D’Labik’s back, sending his face into a convenience store floor.
“As soon as I spit, I realized my teeth was out,” D’Labik said.
It all started outside the convenience store when McGowan was searching for a murder suspect and spotted D’Labik walking down the street.
The detective pulled up and attempted to show the teen a picture of the suspect, but the teen had marijuana in his pocket and became paranoid he was about to be arrested, which is why he took off running.
McGowan then grew suspicious, which is why he drew his gun out and began chasing the teen. The teen ran into a store where he pulled out a phone and called his father, who apparently told him to comply with the officer’s commands because that’s exactly what he did as soon as the cop walked into the store with his gun drawn.
“He was like, ‘Put your hands up,’ so I put the phone down, I put my hands up. He said, ‘Get on the ground,’ and I went to get on the ground and that’s what he did,” D’Labik told Fox 10.
D’Labik ended up losing three teeth and cracking two others. The district attorney reviewed the case but declined to file charges against the cop, saying no crime had been committed, which is why his attorney said he deserves to get his job back.
After all, police work is the only occupation where grounds of termination highly depends on a criminal conviction, which as we know, rarely happens with cops.
McGowan, part of the Fugitive Apprehension Team, claimed he had seen D’Labik walking with a man resembling the suspect he was seeking earlier that day, which is why he waited until later in the day to confront D’Labik.
In other words, he is lying through his teeth (no pun intended) because any cop worth his badge would have confronted him the moment he spotted the man who resembled the fugitive.