Everyone remembers the “snap your arm like a twig” video posted above, in which SFPD officer Noel Schwab threatened to break skateboarder Zach Stow’s arm when, according to SFPD spokesperson Sgt. Wilfred Williams, Stow was arrested after not being able to provide proper identification.

Officer Schwab’s back in the news today, as the SF Examiner reports that San Francisco is getting ready to approve a monetary settlement to be awarded to a man who was allegedly beaten by Schwab and four other officers in 2008.

According to the Examiner, at 2:20 a.m. July 13, 2008, Noah Booher, his sister, and three friends witnessed a man being arrested at 11th and Harrison. When Booher took out his phone to photograph the arrest, which had turned rather rough, he alleges that Schwab approached him, demanded his ID, then started punching him. According to the suit Booher filed, four other officers “joined in the beating with fists, knees, kicks and elbows for several minutes.”

Neither the City Attorney’s Office nor the SFPD agreed to comment on the case or the impending monetary settlement, which has yet to be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

the author

Eve Batey is the editor and publisher of the San Francisco Appeal. She used to be the San Francisco Chronicle's Deputy Managing Editor for Online, and started at the Chronicle as their blogging and interactive editor. Before that, she was a co-founding writer and the lead editor of SFist. She's been in the city since 1997, presently living in the Outer Sunset with her husband, cat, and dog. You can reach Eve at eve@sfappeal.com.

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