Officer fired after he’s charged with beating man with a Taser, California cops say

A Richmond police officer charged in the beating of a man with a Taser has been fired, California prosecutors said.

Former officer Eric Smith Jr., 28, faces a felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon with enhancements for inflicting great bodily injury and use of a deadly and dangerous weapon, the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office said in a Wednesday, Aug. 3, news release.

Smith was fired the same day by the Richmond Police Department, prosecutors said.

Smith beat a man with a Taser during a traffic stop at 1 a.m. April 9, leaving him seriously injured, the release said.

His defense attorney said officers have a difficult job.

“Eric Smith is a brilliant police officer and a great young man,” his attorney, Harry S. Stern, said in a statement to KRON. “He has taken more guns off the street than the entire department combined thus saving countless lives.”

A police department video, now deleted, showed Smith driving around the community and interacting with children on patrol, KRON reported. In the video, he calls policing “the best job” and says he’s trying to keep young people from taking the wrong path in life.

Richmond is a city of 110,000 north of Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This story was originally published August 4, 2022 at 1:04 PM with the headline "Officer fired after he’s charged with beating man with a Taser, California cops say."