After 18 years with the Brooklyn Police Department, a sergeant with a six-figure salary has now been terminated. >> Brooklyn, Ohio. A police sergeant with 18 years on the job was fired after an internal investigation found he used excessive force against a handcuffed woman. According to the department's findings, the incident happened September 4th, 2025. The woman was arrested on a warrant and placed in handcuffs behind her back. The investigation concluded the sergeant struck her five times in the face while she was restrained. The sergeant was terminated September 17th, 2025. A special prosecutor was assigned to review the case, and as of the latest reporting, no criminal charges have been filed. This wasn't the first time this sergeant was in the headlines. Months earlier, he was also accused in a separate incident involving an alleged hit-and-run and a confrontation that was caught on video. Thin blue lies, baby. >> A Brooklyn officer who was in charge of reviewing use-of-force cases is fired for using excessive force, and this is not the first time the officer has been in the news. Last year, he was accused of hitting a man with his truck and later assaulting that driver. Now, he's been fired for allegedly punching a woman multiple times in the face while her hands were cuffed behind her back. 19 investigator, Mike Mason, has a story you will see only on 19 News. >> Now, we're going to walk through both incidents because the timeline matters and the pattern matters. Let's start with the earlier story. In Cleveland 19's reporting, a man says his vehicle was hit on I-90 in Westlake on April 30th, 2025, and the other vehicle took off. He recorded himself chasing the vehicle, and the reporting describes speeds going over 100 miles per hour during that chase. And the vehicle he was chasing, a Chevy Silverado connected to Brooklyn Police Sergeant Paul Stein. The same sergeant later fired in the handcuffed woman case. Now here's where it gets chef's kiss ridiculous. Cleveland 19 reported the sergeant later claimed he felt his life was in jeopardy because a car accident happened and the correct response was apparently floor it and flee. And the same reporting also described accusations that he later confronted the driver at the police station and the whole thing was caught on camera. So just to recap in plain English, hit a car, leave the scene, speed off, then allegedly escalate the situation later. And we're supposed to treat this like a normal Tuesday. And despite all that, Cleveland 19 later reported he was disciplined, reprimanded for that incident. Not launched into the sun. Not treated like the public would be treated. Disciplined. >> Stein's been in the news before. 19 Investigates broke the story about an incident that occurred on April 30th. Juan Wyckoff was driving an I-90 and he says Stein's truck hit his car then sped off at more than 100 miles an hour. >> I'm like he literally just tried to run me off the highway and kept going. >> At the time, Wyckoff didn't know Stein was an off-duty cop on his way to work. Wyckoff grabbed his cell phone and he followed the truck and recorded it driving erratically. When the two arrived at the police station, Wyckoff followed Stein to the employee entrance. That's when surveillance video captured the officer aggressively pushing Wyckoff away and kicking his leg. >> Or when if assault on camera not a crime, it makes no sense cuz if I would have defended myself, I wouldn't have been able to talk to nobody. >> You think you'd be behind bars? >> If not worse. >> Wykoff wanted to press charges, but after police investigated, Stein only received a traffic citation and a written reprimand. Now we get to September. Brooklyn police arrest a woman on a warrant. She's in cuffs behind her back, restrained, controlled, done. And that's when Sergeant Stein decides to introduce us to hands-behind-your-back boxing club. Internal investigators concluded he struck her five times. Five. Not oops, not reaction, not split second. Five. That's not policing. That's temper tantrum with benefits. And the excuse floating around these types of cases is always the same flavor of nonsense. She spit. She said something. She was disrespectful. Oh, no, not disrespect. Somebody call the Constitution and tell it we have an emergency. A police officer's feelings got bruised. Here's the problem. Police have tools for spitting. They have distance. They have spit hoods. They have masks. They have other officers. They have literal training for exactly this. What they do not have is the right to use their fists as a punishment button. >> That all changed this past September when police arrested a woman on an outstanding warrant for aggravated menacing. The report states she was intoxicated, acting uncooperative, and belligerent. So, officers cuffed her hands behind her back and decided to place her in a restraint chair. The report says Stein stepped on her feet to stop her from kicking. She said his boots were hurting her, so she told him to get off. When he didn't, the woman spat directly into his face. The report says Stein slapped her left cheek with an open hand, then he punched her left jaw three times. When another officer grabbed his right arm, Stein switched hands and struck her with his left fist. The chief wrote, "I believe this incident rises to the level of malfeasance, intentional conduct that is wrong or unlawful." He called the punches excessive and egregious. During Stein's pre-disciplinary hearing, he prepared a statement saying, "My objective was not to harm the subject, but to stop her from spitting at me again." He said, "I believe that the force I used was reasonable." Stein claimed the strikes were not delivered with a high degree of force and the suspect wasn't harmed. But reports show the woman did have lacerations to her lip and bruising to her jawline. Officers took photos to document her injuries, but we can't show you who she is since she's now considered an assault victim. >> Now, here's something that came directly from his own statement, written after the punching incident. At the end of that statement, Sergeant Stein wrote that he was undergoing counseling, was under pressure since the traffic incident, said he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and wanted additional counseling. Let's be clear about what this is and what it isn't. This isn't speculation. This isn't internet diagnosis. This is an officer explaining his mental state in connection with a use-of-force incident. And here's the problem. When an officer writes that they're mentally overwhelmed after punching a restrained person, the question isn't whether they deserve counseling. The question is why they were in a position to use force in that condition. This doesn't excuse what happened. It explains why pretending this was unpredictable is nonsense. The warning signs weren't hidden. And here's the detail that makes this story hit harder. Cleveland 19 reported that Sergeant Stein was responsible for reviewing use-of-force cases. Let that sink in. The guy who helps decide what excessive force looks like apparently needed to see it up close from his own knuckles. >> At the end of his statement, Stein jotted down these handwritten notes. They read, "Undergoing counseling, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and under pressure since the traffic incident." Stein was terminated on September 17th. >> Stein was one of three officers at the department in charge of reviewing use-of-force incidents. We reached out to him for his side of the story, but we haven't heard back. The city has turned this over to a special prosecutor to review for possible charges. At this point, he hasn't filed any, but we'll of course keep you posted if he does. >> Now, to be fair, the department did fire him, terminated. Which is rare enough in America that some people are going to call this a win. But let's not do cartwheels yet. Because the bigger question is how many incidents does it take before the system stops protecting the badge and starts protecting the public? Because by the time we get to punching a handcuffed woman we're not talking about a training issue. We're talking about a character issue. And character issues don't start on page five. They start way earlier. Like allegedly leaving an accident scene and then escalating at a police station. If you or I punch a restrained person five times, we don't get administrative review. We don't get special prosecutor assigned. We get bracelets. Then a cell. And that's the point of this channel. The double standard isn't an accident. It's the design. If you want this channel to stay independent, no sponsors, no police unions, no filters the support links are in the pinned comment. Subscribe, share it, or back the channel if you can. That's how this work keeps going. Thin blue lies, baby.