LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A second former Arkansas law enforcement officer who pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of a man he kicked during a violent arrest which was captured on video in 2022, has been sentenced to one year in prison.
U.S. District Judge Susan O. Hickey on Thursday sentenced former Crawford County sheriff’s deputy Zackary King to prison, with credit for time served in federal custody, court records show. King agreed in April to plead guilty to one count of deprivation of rights under the law in the Aug. 21, 2022, arrest of Randal Worcester outside a convenience store.
Hickey also ordered King to serve one year of supervised release.
King and another former deputy, Levi White, were charged by federal prosecutors before the arrest last year. A bystander used a cell phone to record the arrest in the small town of Mulberry, about 140 miles northwest of Little Rock, near the Oklahoma border. The video was widely shared online.
“Smacking a man in the head, hitting his head repeatedly on the concrete sidewalk, kicking him in the back and hitting him in the middle – this kind of unnecessary and unjustified force by police violates the oath that officers take. in our country to protect and serve,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “The defendants swore an oath to uphold the law, then violated that oath and abused their power as law enforcement officers by assaulting an individual in their custody.”
An attorney for King did not immediately return a message late Thursday afternoon.
White, who also pleaded guilty Wednesday in April was convicted to more than five years, with credit for time served, and ordered to be held at a federal prison medical facility in Missouri. A judge ordered White to receive mental health counseling and treatment while in jail.
A third officer caught in the video, Mulberry Police Officer Thell Riddle, was not charged in the federal case. King and White were dismissed by the Crawford County Sheriff. The video showed King and White punching Worcester as Riddle held him back. White also hit Worcester’s head on the pavement.
Police have said that Worcester was being questioned for threatening a grocery store clerk in the nearby town of Alma when he attacked one of the deputies and hit him in the head before the arrest. Worcester is scheduled to appear in court in February on charges related to the arrest, including resisting arrest and second-degree battery.
Worcester has submitted an application court case in 2022 against the three officers, the city of Mulberry and Crawford County over the arrest. But that case has been put on hold while criminal cases related to the arrest are still pending.