The student in the second Fullerton College Campus Safety incident video, who was recorded yelling “Officer that hurts!” repeatedly, has been identified as Lorenzo Kevin Bennett of Santa Ana, CA.
The video was recorded by Fullerton College student Brittney Lopez.
Bennett was placed under arrest at approximately 6 p.m. on Oct. 13 for public intoxication. He was held by campus safety and was placed under arrest once Fullerton Police Department got there.
Officer Dino Skokos, as well as Officer Erubiel Herrera from the Louis Munoz incident at 2:45 p.m., are both identified in the video, with confirmation from Fullerton College that Skokos was is in fact one of the officers in the video.
According to several sources, the incident began when Bennett caused a disturbance in the 700 building, which resulted in him being handcuffed in the 500 building just outside of the Umoja Center.
“I just seen him when he was getting harassed, when he got to the floor,” Lopez said, “not much more happened than what is in the video.”
Joshua Quinonez, a student assistant from the Umoja Center, came forward during the Presidents Forum held on Oct. 17 with information beyond the videos provided.
“We’re talking about one incident, when there was two incidents on that day. The second incident involved Lorenzo, a student who’s an Umoja student,” Quinonez said, “On that day I saw the incident from its occurrence until when the police department came and took him. I also talked to a student who came with him who wants to remain undisclosed.”
Quinonez stated that Bennett got into an argument with his professor because he felt that the professor wasn’t teaching him, which led to a shouting match between Bennett and the professor.
The professor is suspected to be Professor Danny Carter according to information provided by Quinonez.
Carter he refused to comment on the incident.
Campus safety was called and asked Bennett to leave. Quinonez stated that he felt campus safety decided to escalate the situation rather than deescalate the situation and see why Bennett was angry.
According to Quinonez, this is when Bennett came to the Umoja Center to speak to someone about what was happening. When he exited the Umoja Center, Bennett was met by campus safety.
“They proceed to tell him he has to leave, he says ‘This is my right as a student to be here, I am headed to student services’,” Quinonez said, “that escalated to the excessive use of force.”
“There was students in that hallway who were being yelled at and berated, I included, a couple other students who were told ‘If you don’t leave now, you will be arrested as well. They were screaming to us and telling us we need to leave and I don’t think that’s justified,” Quinonez added.
In the start of the video, Bennett is heard repeatedly yelling “Officer that hurts!” to campus safety officers.
“Why don’t you loosen the cuffs? I haven’t done anything; I have no weapons on me you guys are harassing me. Loosen these cuffs,” Bennett said in the first video.
The video then cuts to an officer questioning the recorder of the videos.
When approached, she responds “..but you said I was antagonizing him, I am not antagonizing him but you said I’m antagonizing him. I’m not antagonizing him. I’m just making sure everything is legit.”
Campus safety then asks for her ID, to which she responds, “Am I going to get in trouble if I don’t?”
The second video then cuts to a second officer speaking with her.
Two officers insist that she is “observing incorrectly.” An explanation of the meaning of this is not provided.
“His name is Lorenzo Kevin Bennett, a 30 year old male,” Sergeant Jon Radus Public Information Officer of Fullerton Police Department said, “we were called at 6:25 p.m., the suspect was intoxicated to a point where we considered him a danger to others and himself, so we took him in.”
Fullerton College Campus Safety was unable to comment due to a new investigation into this incident, directing the Hornet instead to Lisa McPheron Director of Campus Communications
“Because this is a student disciplinary issue, I am very limited in what I can share,” McPheron said before confirming the information provided by Fullerton Police Department.
“I can confirm that we had multiple reports of a student causing a disturbance in the 700 building,” McPheron said, “that resulted in the call out to the police department.”
McPheron confirmed that Skokos was involved with this incident with Bennett as well.
“He was not the initial responding officer, I think you have video of him on the scene,” McPheron said, “from what I understand he wasn’t involved in the interactions with the student directly.”
Professor Dale Craig witnessed part of the incident, and he appears walking by the officers and Bennett in the hallway.
“All I know is it was in the hallway outside of my office, so i went out to see what was going on and I just observed. I guess it was after they had handcuffed him but I don’t know the specific details of the incident,” Craig said, “I heard him yelling, when I went out he was sitting on the ground and he was handcuffed, and he was complaining that the cuffs were too tight, and then he stopped complaining that the cuffs were too tight and then he just had a conversation with everybody standing around,”
“This was in the afternoon about 6 o’ clock, apparently, they had called the Fullerton P.D., a dean was there, and I believe there was someone from the student services office was there and several campus safety” Craig said, “Starkman, the dean from Technology and Engineering,” Craig said in regard to who the Dean was at the incident.
“Yes, I saw him there,” Craig said when shown a picture of Skokos.
The Dean that Craig was referring to was Ken Starkman, Dean of Technology & Engineering at Fullerton College.
“We just had a student who wasn’t following directions,” Dean Starkman said, “it occurred around 7 p.m.”
Starkman confirmed that he was the Dean that was seen in the video. He was unable to comment any further due to the fact that the incident is currently “under investigation.”
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