Former Officer Armando Bustamante Pleads Guilty To Hitting Man He Arrested With Gun’ Ex-Memphis officer has pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of a man who was in his custody by hitting him in the head with his gun, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Former Officer Armando Bustamante Pleads Guilty To Hitting Man He Arrested With Gun
Armando Bustamante faces up to 10 years in prison at sentencing in June after pleading guilty to one felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law, the U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said in a news release.
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/arc-goldfish-cmg-thumbnails.s3.amazonaws.com/02-15-2023/t_625b8675226243f085d8ab964e54af3b_name_Untitled_design__2_.png "Former Officer Armando Bustamante Pleads Guilty To Hitting Man He Arrested With Gun")
Prosecutors said Bustamante arrested a man in January 2021 and struck him in the head with his service weapon and his hands without legal justification, injuring him.
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Bustamante was hired in 2015, Memphis police said in a statement. He resigned in 2021 “in lieu of potential termination” on internal police department charges of using excessive or unnecessary force, and violating a personal conduct policy, police said.
The guilty plea comes as the U.S. Justice Department investigates the actions of Memphis officers involved in the Jan. 7 arrest of Tyre Nichols, who was punched, kicked and hit with a police baton after Nichols fled a traffic stop.
Five Memphis officers already have been fired and accused of state charges of second-degree murder and other alleged offences in the arrest of Nichols, who died Jan. 10.
