The 15-second video of sheriff’s deputy Ben Fields slamming a student to the ground sent shivers down Carlos Martin’s spine.
After all, he’d been manhandled by the beefy South Carolina cop the same way almost exactly 10 years before.
“I recognized him on the spot. I remembered how big he was,” the 36-year-old Army veteran told the Daily News.
Martin had encountered Fields twice before: once in a Columbia, S.C., parking lot during an arrest and later in the courtroom, where Martin and his wife, Tashiana, filed suit against the hulking officer for civil rights violations.
That suit fizzled out during a drawn-out legal process, but Martin still bears the emotional scars from the 2005 confrontation with Fields, who then was a rookie officer with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.
