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Cops Beat Black Man With Handcuffs Like ‘Brass Knuckles’ And Pulled Down His Pants

One offi­cer has been fired and is fac­ing 99 years in prison.

By Trone Dowd

When Aundre Howard, a Black man, fled from Houston police dur­ing a traf­fic stop in 2019, one of the offi­cers was caught on body cam­era footage telling his part­ner to “shoot his ass” as they pur­sued. When that offi­cer final­ly caught up to Howard, he used a pair of hand­cuffs wrapped around his left hand like a pair of brass knuck­les to repeat­ed­ly punch the flee­ing man in the back of the head.
Now, the for­mer police offi­cer is fac­ing prison time.
Lucas Vieira, 31, a four-year-vet­er­an with the Houston Police Department, was indict­ed by a Harris County District Court grand jury on July 9. Two days lat­er, the Houston Police Department announced that it had fired Vieira months ago, in April. If con­vict­ed, he faces up to 99 years in prison as well as a $10,000 fine.

The indict­ment also comes just over three months after Howard, 34, filed a fed­er­al civ­il rights law­suit accus­ing Vieira of unjust­ly strik­ing him and of vio­lat­ing his right to unjust search and due process.

“Mr. Howard suf­fered great pain, con­tu­sions, humil­i­a­tion, anx­i­ety, fear, loss of sleep, headaches, and oth­er men­tal anguish as a result of the defendant’s actions,” accord­ing to the law­suit, which was pro­vid­ed to VICE News by Howard’s attor­ney, Randall Kallinen.

“My client is very pleased that the offi­cer was indict­ed because it val­i­dates what he’s been con­cerned about for a while,” Kallinen told VICE News. “He does feel bet­ter that when offi­cers injure peo­ple like him­self, they do have to face jus­tice just like any­body else would.”

The encounter with police occurred July 7, 2019, when Vieira ini­ti­at­ed a stop on Howard’s vehi­cle for a traf­fic vio­la­tion. According to Vieira’s attor­ney James Siscoe, police noticed mar­i­jua­na on Howard’s cen­ter con­sole when they first approached the car dur­ing the traf­fic stop, prompt­ing a search. Police placed Howard in hand­cuffs, but they found noth­ing. As Officer Serrano began to put on rub­ber gloves for a cav­i­ty search, Howard began to run from police toward a near­by free­way, accord­ing to the law­suit. Read the full sto­ry here; https://​www​.vice​.com/​e​n​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​4​a​v​7​a​b​/​c​o​p​s​-​b​e​a​t​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​m​a​n​-​w​i​t​h​-​h​a​n​d​c​u​f​f​s​-​l​i​k​e​-​b​r​a​s​s​-​k​n​u​c​k​l​e​s​-​a​n​d​-​p​u​l​l​e​d​-​d​o​w​n​-​h​i​s​-​p​a​nts