San Diego police have launched an internal investigation after two officers were recorded repeatedly punching a man during an arrest this week according to NBC News.

A witness recorded the incident Wednesday said she recognized the man being hit in the head and legs as a “harmless” neighborhood vagrant. She told the news outlet she couldn’t believe what happened after officers investigated the man. The man was accused of urinating in public.

“I see him around all the time. He’s harmless. He’s just homeless,” Nicole Bansal, 34, said Thursday. “He’s very easy to recognize, because he always has a big orange life vest on.”

A police spokesman, Lt. Shawn Takeuchi, says the Internal Affairs Unit is investigating and reviewing body camera video of the incident, which started around 9 a.m. when officers on patrol “witnessed a man urinating in public.” The officers tried to speak to the man. Police haven’t released the man’s name or whether he is homeless.

“The man would not stop to speak with officers therefore an officer held the man to detain him,” Takeuchi said in a statement. “Despite the officers repeatedly telling the man to ‘stop resisting,’ the man would not comply. One of the officers struck the man several times.”

The man was taken into custody and taken to a hospital. Once he was released from the hospital, he was booked on charges of resisting arrest and battery of a police officer. As of now, officers haven’t been publicly identified. Bansal says she saw two officers get out of a police car and approach the man, who is Black. She felt uneasy about the situation and took out her phone and recorded the encounter for over 4 minutes.

“They did not try to de-escalate. … If they had just approached the situation calmly and tried to de-escalate, we wouldn’t be here,” she said. “That man didn’t go out to take those guys down. The cops went there with that intention to take him down … and the resulting fight is what ensued.”

Bansal’s video shows an officer in front of the man appears to be holding a stun gun, while a second officer grabs the man’s arm from behind. The man, who has a vest around his neck, appears to flinch at the officer while the officer almost simultaneously holsters a weapon according to NBC News. That officer proceeds to lunge at the man, and a struggle starts.

The video shows an officer punch the man in the face and head at least three times. The same officer strikes him with his forearm. Another officer punches the man in his legs about a half-dozen times. Officers are heard repeatedly saying “stop resisting” and “put your hands behind your back.”

The man appears to punch an officer in the face and attempts a second punch but misses. The struggle among the three men lasted about 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Then two other officers arrived to help with the arrest, the video shows.

A San Diego police de-escalation policy instituted June of 2020 requires officers to “try to establish an effective line of communication” while taking into account factors like age, medical or physical conditions and “known or perceived disabilities, including mental illness.”

Bansal said she witnessed shook her and amounted to criminalizing homelessness.

“These people are meant to serve and protect the community. They have a right to also serve and protect that man. He’s a member of this community,” Bansal said. “I’ve lost a lot of faith … in the police as I see these videos on social media. But I still never thought I would be on the receiving end of witnessing something like this.”

Read more:

Texas School District Won’t Let Black Teen Walk At Graduation Unless He Cuts His Locs

Howard University Alum Jewel Burks Solomon Named First Head Of Google For Startups

Black Man Convicted For Selling Weed, Now Helps Start Small Businesses in NOLA After Leaving Prison