The jury in the trial of the white Inglewood, CA police officer who slammed a black teen's head onto the hood of a car hood and punched him with his fist has ended in a hung jury. His partner was acquitted of filing a false police report over the incident.

The videotape looked pretty clear to us.

The video is of four to five cops surrounding a teenager on the ground who does not appear to be resisting. One officer picks him up and slams really slams his head into the hood of the car. Another cop punches him in the head. The video was taken by tourists.

The kid was limp when the cop pulled him up and slammed him against the car and then punched him. He also had already been handcuffed.

Here's what started the incident according to an article at the time in the LA Times (available now on Lexis :

"The encounter occurred last Saturday evening when Jackson and his father, Coby Chavis, were at an Inglewood gas station and two sheriff's deputies stopped to investigate Chavis' expired vehicle registration tags. Jackson was leaving the station's market, holding a bag of potato chips, when he saw the deputies talking to his father. Jackson tried to get into his father's car, ignoring deputies' commands to wait while they questioned Chavis, according to the officers and deputies."

All this over a teen eating a bag of potato chips who doesn't want to sit in a cop car because he hasn't done anything wrong. The cops, by the way, are suing the police department for racial discrimination saying they were treated more harshly than a black officer who had used excess force.

Update: The DA has decided to retry the officer.