Good Samaritans save woman being attacked with flashlight by husband in Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY (KABC) -- A group of Good Samaritans stepped in to save a woman who was being attacked by her husband in an Oklahoma parking lot, and the entire incident was captured on cellphone video.

In the video, the woman is heard screaming out as her husband beats her with a large flashlight. The woman asks a group of men passing by to call police, and that's when they intervene.

Oklahoma City police say the beating began when 56-year-old Douglas Beckham refused to stop and buy his wife something to eat at a drive-thru.

The woman can be seen in the truck bed with severe lacerations to her legs. The husband then gets into the cab of his truck with his wife still trapped in the truck bed.

The group then confronts Beckham, striking him several times and taking away the large flashlight in his hand.

"We don't advocate to the level that it went," Oklahoma City police Capt. Paco Balderrama said. "Call the police, let us handle it. Once people are out of harm's way, let the professionals handle it."

The woman was taken out of the truck bed just before her husband hit the gas, but Beckham didn't leave. He started speeding back toward the men.

One of them then jumped on the speeding truck and smashed out one of the windows.

"One of the witnesses got into the back of the truck, the back window was smashed out -- all very, very dangerous situations," Balderrama said.

Beckham is now in jail, facing two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and one count of domestic assault.

Court records show Beckham faced domestic violence charges last year for knocking his wife to the ground and hitting her repeatedly with a hammer.

Beckham once carried a badge, and is now behind bars at the very jail where he once worked as a sheriff's deputy.