Indictment: Missouri officer kicked man who was surrendering

Audio By Carbonatix

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A suburban St. Louis police officer who appears to kick a surrendering man in images captured on dashcam video has been indicted on a federal charge.

David Maas was indicted Thursday on one count of deprivation of rights under color of law, the U.S. attorney's office said in a news release.

According to the indictment, Maas kicked and struck the man in April 2019 while the man was compliant and not posing a physical threat to anyone, causing “bodily injury" and depriving him of his right to be “free from unreasonable force."

Maas was worked for the Woodson Terrace Police Department at the time but later began working for the police force in Breckenridge Hills.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that indictment identifies the victim by the initials “I.F.” The allegations match those made in a 2019 civil lawsuit by Isaiah Forman. Forman is serving a seven-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree assault on a special victim for crashing into a St. Ann police car during the chase.

The lawsuit against Maas and others says Forman had “surrendered peaceably.”

Police at the time said Forman, then 21, was driving a car that had been taken by another man at gunpoint.

“I’m glad that the law enforcement agencies are subject to the same standard as everybody else," Forman’s lawyer, Mark McCloskey, said.

In his filed response, a lawyer for Maas denied the claims and said Forman “aggressively resisted arrest” and “struck a police vehicle, narrowly missing a police officer in the process.” No attorney is listed for Maas in online court records in the criminal case.