A cop in the Sarasota County Jail was seen on a July 18 surveillance video throwing peanuts into the mouth of a handcuffed man. The video, released on July 27, shows the homeless man trying to catch the peanuts.
There was no sound recorded with the video but the officer was identified as Andrew Halpin, and the homeless man was Randy Miller. One of the people present during the incident said that the officer was laughing and shouting dog commands and making Miller catch food thrown at him like a zoo animal. Miller, handcuffed at the time, was also wearing just one shoe. Whenever the homeless man failed to catch what was thrown at him, Halpin kicked it towards him. Officers in the county jail did not stop the abuse but instead gave more peanuts for Halpin to throw, the Inquisitr reported.
Miller was in the county jail that night for trespassing outside a convenience store. It was reported that Miller had a total of 22 arrests in Sarasota County since September last year - his offenses are usually trespassing, drinking in public and littering. He was released July 28, 10 days after the peanut incident, International Business Times said.
Sarasota Police Department Officers and Sarasota County Sheriff's office will investigate the case but will focus more on the officers present in the video instead of Miller. Police officers were not aware of the incident until a newspaper reporter presented the issue to them, said on the New York Daily News.
"I'm disappointed in what I observed in the video and placed the officer on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the investigation," Police Chief Bernadette DiPino said, according to Sarasota Herald Tribune.
The county of Sarasota does not allow overnight camping on public and private properties. Since the homeless usually camp out, the National Coalition for the Homeless named Sarasota the "meanest city in the nation" in 2006, NBC News reported.
