Shocking video shows an off-duty Connecticut cop punching a driver after he threatened to ticket him because the man honked at him for not turning at a red light.
Dashcam footage from Thomas Brocuglio’s company van caught Meriden Police Department Corporal Allen Ganter stopped at a red light in Rocky Hill in December, NBC Connecticut reported.
Brocuglio, 37, whose dog was riding shotgun with him, pulled up behind the off-duty officer, waiting for him to make a right turn on red.
“What are you doing?” Brocuglio asked the driver in front of him inside his car while he honked the horn.
Ganter, 57, then exited his Toyota Tacoma wearing gym shorts and a zip-up hoodie, waving his badge as he approached Brocuglio’s vehicle.
“You can’t take a right on red here, you assh—e,” the 20-year veteran of the Meriden Police Department shouts.
Brocuglio pointed out that the sign says “stop here on red” and not “No turn on Red” before accusing Ganter of being on his phone and not paying attention to traffic.
“I saw you looking down doing everything else,” said Brocuglio.
“No, I was moving something in my bag,” responded Ganter.
The back-and-forth banter between the men then begins to heat up.
Ganter threatens to serve the man a ticket and call his “supervisor” for merely honking.
Brocuglio then asks the off-duty cop for his badge number.
Ganter is then seen reaching into Brocuglio’s car and punching him in the side of the face, video obtained by the outlet shows.
“You are going to get arrested for assaulting a civilian,” Brocuglio shouts at him as Ganter retreats to his truck.
Ganter drives off, and Brocuglio calls 911 to report the on-camera assault.
Brocuglio told officers he was left dazed by the punch, and possibly concussed, an arrest warrant obtained by the outlet shows.
Photos taken by responding officers with the Rocky Hill Police Department show swelling and redness on his left cheek.
Later, police approached Ganter at his home for a statement, body-cam footage obtained by the outlet shows.
“So, he is saying that I hit him?” Ganter asks the officer. “And there is nothing I can press for breach of peace, for him yelling at me?”
Ganter then admitted he punched Brocuglio while making his statement.
“My fault, I’m wrong, I shouldn’t have,” Ganter said.
The officers also documented his hands, with a red mark appearing on the pointer finger of his right hand.
Meriden Police launched an internal affairs investigation into the assault and found the off-duty cop broke the department’s rules of conduct.
Ganter, who works as a school resource officer for the Thomas Edison Middle School in Meriden, was charged with breach of peace and 3rd-degree assault.
“[Ganter] was also removed from his assignment as a School Resource Officer and as a result of the discipline which was rendered as a part of the IA investigation, Corporal Ganter was permanently removed from his assignment as an SRO,” Meriden Police wrote in a statement to Fox61.
He was also suspended for five days without pay and will have to attend de-escalation training for the next three years.
