Video: Seattle Cop Punches Girl During Jaywalking Stop

(June 16) -- Police in Seattle are under scrutiny after an officer was caught on camera punching a 17-year-old girl in the face during a jaywalking stop.

According to the police report, two female teens assaulted an officer Monday afternoon after he tried to cite them for jaywalking across a busy Seattle street. But a widely circulated video of the officer throwing a punch at the teenage girl has raised questions about whether too much force was used and prompted the Seattle Police Department to order an internal investigation.

Acting Deputy Chief Nick Metz said Tuesday he was "withholding judgment" on the incident until the review is complete.

Initially, police said officer Ian Walsh was trying to stop four females from jaywalking across a busy Seattle street when at least one of them, 19-year-old Marilyn Ellen Levias, became "verbally antagonistic" and ignored the officer's requests to remain at the scene. When Walsh tried "escorting" Levias to his patrol car, she resisted, the report said, and "began to tense up her arm and pull away from the officer while yelling at him."

Then 17-year-old Angel Rosenthal "came at the officer," police said, apparently trying to stop him from arresting the other teenager. According to police, that's when Walsh threw a punch at Rosenthal.

The video clearly shows Rosenthal getting physical with Walsh. But the image of a white police officer punching a black teenage girl has sparked anger in Seattle, where people struggled to understand how what should have been a routine police stop ended in violence -- again.

Two months ago, on April 17, two Seattle police officers were caught on tape kicking and stomping a Latino man as they spewed racial epithets.

"You got me? I'm going to beat the f****** Mexican p*** out of you homey. You feel me?" one officer can be heard saying on the tape.

Police detained the man but determined that he was not involved in any criminal activity and let him go. An internal investigation into the incident is already under way, Seattle's KIRO 7 reports.

Some rights groups said the jaywalking incident was another clear example of police brutality.

"This is another case where we are standing here, saying 'Shame on you' to the Seattle police," James Kelly, head of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, said at a news conference Tuesday.

But Kelly also said Rosenthal was wrong to resist the officer and told reporters that the teenager's behavior "only helped escalate an already tense situation." Still, he said, "two wrongs don't make a right."

Rich O'Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officers' Guild, said the officer was in the right. "He did nothing wrong," O'Neill told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Let's put the accountability where it needs to be: They escalated the situation."

O'Neill also dismissed claims that the incident was racially charged.

"The race issue gets old after a while; it really does," he said.

Rosenthal and Levias are expected to be charged today in Seattle, Levias with obstructing an officer and Rosenthal with third-degree assault of an officer, which is a felony.

Both teenagers have criminal records. Last year, Rosenthal was charged with second-degree robbery when a 15-year-old boy said his cell phone and $20 were stolen after he was punched in the face; and in 2008 she was charged with theft of a motor vehicle. The robbery charges were later dismissed, The Seattle Times reported.

Levias was charged with third-degree assault in 2009 after pushing a sheriff's deputy and was given probation.