NORTHWOODS, Mo. — Two former police officers with the Northwoods Police Department are facing a federal indictment alleging that a man was beaten with a police baton while handcuffed.
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday announced the indictment accusing Samuel Davis and Michael Hill of federal civil rights violations. Both formerly worked as officers in Northwoods, Missouri, a town of about 4,200 residents.
The indictment said the officers encountered a man at a Walgreens on July 4, 2023. Hill, who was a supervisor, told Davis to take the man to nearby Kinloch, Missouri, and Davis took the handcuffed man to a field and struck him with his police baton, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
Davis told a dispatcher that the man was gone before Davis arrived at the Walgreens, and turned off his body camera, according to the indictment. It said Hill lied to FBI agents investigating the incident.
Police said when the man was in the back of Davis' patrol car after they arrested him, Hill went back into the store and made an "incriminating statement" to an employee about what would happen to the victim.
A witness who spotted Davis’s Northwoods patrol car parked in the field said she saw an officer standing over the man, adding that when she walked up to the victim, he told her the police beat him in the head. She called 911 and posted a photo of the victim on Facebook along with a description of what she saw. The photo showed a young man lying on the ground with a bruised, battered and bloodied face.
Both former officers have turned themselves in. A message seeking comment was left Tuesday with Davis' lawyer. Hill did not yet have a listed attorney.