{"id":46698,"date":"2019-07-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/duplicate-3504444.findlaw4.flsitebuilder.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/former-tennessee-cop-is-accused-of-using-excessive-force\/"},"modified":"2020-03-18T10:27:17","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T15:27:17","slug":"former-tennessee-cop-is-accused-of-using-excessive-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/blog\/2019\/07\/former-tennessee-cop-is-accused-of-using-excessive-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Tennessee cop is accused of using excessive force"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before he became a police officer, Geraldo Orta was a University of Tennessee football player perhaps best known for being accused of beating up a teammate. Today, he has become known as a former cop who was fired for lying and for being accused in a federal lawsuit of using excessive force while making <a href=\"\/criminal-defense\/drug-crimes\/\">a drug arrest<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old former police officer was fired nearly a year ago for lying about whether he had responded to a burglar alarm at a bicycle store. Days ago, he was accused of using a stun gun and stomping on a man&rsquo;s neck while arresting the suspect for huffing behind a store.<\/p>\n<p>Orta was with the Knoxville Police Department for less than a year before he was fired by the city&rsquo;s police chief for lying about responding to an alarm. A recent lawsuit filed in federal court accuses him of using an electric stun gun and stomping on the neck of a suspect who was, by all accounts, nonviolent.<\/p>\n<p>Knoxville officers do not wear bodycams, and bushes behind the store where the encounter occurred blocked Orta&rsquo;s cruiser&rsquo;s dashcam from recording video of the incident, though it did capture audio.<\/p>\n<p>Though Orta denied to internal investigators that he stomped on the man, he did eventually admit that he had &ldquo;sparked&rdquo; his stun gun. The activation of the stun gun was in violation of Knoxville Police Department policy for dealing with suspects who do not struggle.<\/p>\n<p>The man claims in his lawsuit that he was hospitalized for more than two weeks after the incident, and that his injuries required him to undergo surgery and have a new pacemaker installed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.knoxnews.com\/story\/news\/crime\/2019\/07\/09\/geraldo-orta-knoxville-police-excessive-force-lawsuit-university-of-tennessee-football-rape-case\/1674770001\/%20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">In the recorded audio<\/a>, Orta can be heard threatening to use the stun gun on the man. A few seconds later, the man says he is hurt and that he can&rsquo;t get up.<\/p>\n<p>As we have learned in Chattanooga, not every arrest is legitimate and not every police officer serves and protects the public.<\/p>\n<p>If you or a loved one has been arrested, contact an experienced criminal defense attorney who will protect your rights and defend your freedom.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before he became a police officer, Geraldo Orta was a University of Tennessee football player perhaps best known for being accused of beating up a teammate. Today, he has become known as a former cop who was fired for lying and for being accused in a federal lawsuit of using excessive force while making a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drug-crimes"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.internetfactfinder.com\/levittandlevitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}