Witnesses to the recent tasing and arrest of a man in Santa Cruz describe the incident differently from the account communicated by police through the reporting of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Individuals on the scene report excessive force was used when officers with the SCPD arrested Oliver Howard near the Court House on Water Street on the afternoon of October 13. They say officers struck Howard with a baton, tased his bare body, piled on top of him, wrenched and twisted his limbs, and grinded his face and body into the ground, all unnecessarily.

Debra Ellis was driving on Water Street that afternoon on her way to a medical appointment when she observed what she called an "aggressive police officer" pursuing a man near the Court House who was backing up with his hands raised above his head. She immediately exited her car because she wanted to be a witness to what she thought could be an "escalation of violence" by the police officer. The officer's body language and facial expressions were "tense and angry," Ellis recalled. "I did not feel the man he was pursuing was dangerous or a threat to the officer or me."

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