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PITTSBURGH (AP) — A drug suspect claims he was wrongly beaten then shot with a stun gun while his hand was in a cast and one leg was shackled to a police department bench during an altercation captured on surveillance video at a Pennsylvania police station. Attorney Todd Hollis contends Elizabeth borough police should have used less violent means to control his client, Joshua Brooks, 21, during the April 2015 incident — including simply moving beyond the reach of the shackle attaching Brooks to the bench. "I think the actions of both police officers were unwarranted and sad," Hollis told The Associated Press on Thursday. "And I think they underscore the distrust that the public has for many police agencies not just in and around the city of Pittsburgh, but all around the country." Police Chief Timothy Butler referred questions to the borough's attorney, who did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Butler said the officers being sued, Garrett Kimmell and Dan Verno, can't comment on the federal lawsuit filed Wednesday. The suit seeking unspecified damages contends Kimmell used excessive force and wrongfully battered Brooks, and that the borough failed to properly train the officers. Elizabeth police filed 29 charges against Brooks, most of them relating to his alleged assault on Kimmell or for resisting arrest. The district attorney's office withdrew most of the charges after viewing the surveillance video, and the others were dropped when Brooks pleaded guilty in December to a single heroin possession charge and was sentenced to six months' probation. The incident began after Kimmell arrested Brooks when he tried to run away from a home under surveillance on April 17, 2015. Kimmell found a small baggie of heroin on Brooks outside the house, then confronted the shackled suspect at the police station after Brooks allegedly reached into a trash can where police later found more small bags of heroin. The nearly three-minute surveillance video, attached to the lawsuit as an exhibit, shows Kimmell standing chest to chest with Brooks before grabbing him by the throat, pushing him against a wall, and then punching and kneeing Brooks before applying a chokehold. Hollis contends anything Brooks did after that was in self-defense. The video doesn't have a soundtrack, so it's unclear if the men exchanged words. Hollis contends Kimmell wanted to search Brooks again, but Brooks refused because he'd already been searched at the scene of the arrest. The video shows the cast on Brooks' left hand, even though the lawsuit contends it was on Brooks' right hand. That's important because Kimmell charged Brooks with using his right hand to grab Kimmell's stun gun. "Brooks could not have possibly grabbed anything with his right hand because it was immobilized in a cast, and the cast held his hand open," the lawsuit said. Hollis acknowledged the lawsuit identified the wrong hand as having a cast but told the AP, "There's no hand that moves toward the officer's Taser." The video doesn't clearly show Brooks reaching for the stun gun, but it does show him reaching near the weapon as he puts both hands behind Kimmell before lifting up the officer, slamming him into a wall and pushing him down onto the bench. Kimmell used a stun gun on Brooks after Verno entered and separated the men. Hollis contends the police filed the extra assault and resisting arrest charges because "this is what they always say" to justify using excessive force. "There's no measure of creativity to the response: 'He went for my gun,' 'He took a fighting posture,' 'He didn't do what we asked him to do,'" Hollis said, mocking the police allegations.

Lawsuit: Police wrongly beat suspect who wore cast, shackles