Video shows security guards physically detaining man at Fullerton College

FULLERTON, Calif. (KABC) -- A campus security guard wrestled a man to the ground after asking him to extinguish a cigarette Thursday afternoon at Fullerton College, in an incident captured in a bystander's video.

The detained man, who gave his name only as Luis, said he and the security guard had previous run-ins before the videotaped encounter.

"Why me? Like, I wasn't hurting anyone. I wasn't doing anything wrong," Luis, a former student at the college, said in an interview. "I wasn't bothering anybody."

The footage has been viewed more than 3,000 times on YouTube.

"There's no need for all of this! I am not resisting!" Luis says in the video, as two security guards pin him to the ground.

According to Luis, he complied when one of the guards initially asked him to put out the cigarette. The incident escalated, the man said, when the guard asked to see a student identification card and Luis did not have one.

Luis recounted: "He said, 'Oh, so you're going to get verbally aggressive and noncompliant with me. I'm going to take out these (handcuffs) and I'm going to cuff you because I can do that.'"

Luis's friend, who gave his name as "Wisdom Juice," used his cellphone to record the altercation. The video appears to show the guard slamming Luis against a brick column before throwing him to the ground.

"My purpose of it is to let the world know, we need to stop this," Wisdom Juice said. "We don't need this. This is uncalled for."

Fullerton Police Department officers were called to the scene. A spokesperson for the agency said that, at the request of campus security officials, the man was cited for smoking within 20 feet of a public building, a misdemeanor.

The president of the college, Dr. Greg Schulz, said the guard involved in the initial encounter has been placed on leave and an independent law firm is investigating the incident.

"I just want to assure everyone that we're committed to providing a safe, welcoming environment for all of our students and all of our community members," Schulz said.

Luis, who is considering legal action against the college, has called for the security guard to be terminated.

"How aggressively he took it and decided to go from that - that's on him," Luis said.