A Scranton man punched a police officer in the face as he was being arrested for possession of marijuana, according to a criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Angel Nieves-Vazquez, 34, faces charges of aggravated assault of a police officer, interfering with law enforcement, resisting arrest and possessing a small amount of marijuana.<\/p>\n
Officer Nicholas Brett was on patrol in South Scranton at about 6 p.m. on Wednesday when he spotted Nieves-Vazquez riding a bicycle on the left side of Elm Street toward traffic.<\/p>\n
When Brett approached him and requested his identification, Nieves-Vazquez became aggressive and began arguing about the reason for the stop. Brett unsuccessfully tried to deescalate the situation.<\/p>\n
When Nieves-Vazquez reached inside a satchel he was wearing, he produced a wallet but no identification. Brett spotted a red plastic bag inside the satchel with a marijuana leaf stamped on it. Nieves-Vazquez said it was \u201cweed\u201d but that he had a marijuana card.<\/p>\n
When Brett examined the leafy substance, it was apparent it was not medicinal marijuana.<\/p>\n
Nieves-Vazquez then started to breathe heavily and became increasingly agitated.<\/p>\n
When Brett informed him that he would be handcuffed, Nieves-Vazquez tensed up and refused to put his hands behind his back.<\/p>\n
Brett requested an additional unit respond to the scene.<\/p>\n
Nieves-Vazquez then told Brett, \u201cDon\u2019t use aggression because I can use my aggression too.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then raised his left hand toward his chest and started to yell.<\/p>\n
Nieves-Vazquez then pulled away from Brett and attempted to flee north on Cedar Avenue.<\/p>\n
Brett deployed his Taser and Nieves-Vazquez fell to the ground, but immediately stood back up and punched Brett in the face.<\/p>\n
Brett again stunned Nieves-Vazquez with his Taser, and the suspect again fell to the ground but immediately stood back up, then ran through a Cedar Avenue yard. Brett tackled him to the ground and, along with another officer, handcuffed Nieves-Vazquez, who continued to resist.<\/p>\n
Officers searched Nieves-Vazquez after his arrest and found the marijuana in his satchel, three twisted bags of marijuana and a purple marijuana grinder.<\/p>\n
Nieves-Vazquez, of 38 Crown Circle, remains at Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $10,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 10:15 a.m. on Sept. 30 before District Judge George Seig.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Scranton man punched a police officer in the face as he was being arrested for possession of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[202,201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-290777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}