In this undated Gwinnett County Police Department photo, Sgt. Michael Bongiovanni poses for an official portrait. Gwinnett County police said in an emailed statement Thursday, April 13, 2017, that Bongiovanni... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this undated Gwinnett County Police Department photo, Sgt. Michael Bongiovanni poses for an official portrait. Gwinnett County police said in an emailed statement Thursday, April 13, 2017, that Bongiovanni was fired after a new video surfaced showing him hitting a man in the face. Earlier in the... (Associated Press) 
 
 ATLANTA (AP) — Two Georgia police officers were fired Thursday, a day after authorities say one punched a man who had his hands up and the other kicked the man in the head once he was handcuffed on the ground. 
 
 The Gwinnett County Police Department said Thursday afternoon that Master Police Officer Robert McDonald violated department policy and the law. Video showed McDonald assaulting the handcuffed man, identified as Demetrius Bryan Hollins, while assisting a supervisor who had called for backup during a traffic stop about 4 p.m. Wednesday, police said. 
 
 Several hours later, police said that supervisor, Sgt. Michael Bongiovanni, had also been fired after a second video surfaced of him punching Hollins in the face as Hollins put his hands in the air. 
 
 "We acknowledge that the actions of these two officers have implications that will be felt for some time," a police department statement says. "However, we also believe that our decisive action in terminating both officers speaks volumes about what is expected of each officer that wears a Gwinnett County Police badge." 
 
 The department also has opened criminal investigations into the behavior of the two officers. The results will be turned over to the county district attorney, who will decide whether to prosecute the two officers. 
 
 McDonald was hired by the department in August 2013 and graduated from the police academy in March 2014, while Bongiovanni was hired in September 1998 and graduated from the academy in February 1999. 
 
 No working number could be found for McDonald, and the voicemail at a number listed for Bongiovanni was full. It wasn't immediately clear whether either man had an attorney who could comment. 
 
 Bongiovanni pulled Hollins over in Lawrenceville, just outside Atlanta, police said. 
 
 Video filmed by a witness shows Bongiovanni punching Hollins as Hollins stands with his hands up after getting out of the car, police said. 
 
 The other video shows Bongiovanni appearing to yell at a handcuffed man who then lies face-down in a left-turn lane of the busy intersection. McDonald runs up and immediately appears to stomp on the man's head before both officers eventually pull him to his feet. 
 
 Hollins, 21, appears to have blood on his nose and lip in his booking photo. 
 
 The shift commander initiated an "immediate investigation" and placed McDonald on administrative leave after Hollins' arrest. 
 
 Hollins was driving a red Acura Integra with no license plate and a brake light that didn't work, and switched lanes three times without signaling, according to an incident report filed by Bongiovanni. 
 
 Hollins yelled and began to "act strange," and based on that and the officer's recollection of Hollins' behavior during a previous arrest in August, Bongiovanni called for backup, the report says. 
 
 Hollins yelled and refused to obey orders when Bongiovanni ordered him out of the car and resisted when Bongiovanni tried to arrest him, the report says. There is no mention of Bongiovanni hitting Hollins. 
 
 The report mentions McDonald arriving after Bongiovanni had used his stun gun on Hollins and gotten him handcuffed on the ground. It doesn't mention any contact between McDonald and Hollins. 
 
 The two officers are white and Hollins appears to be black, police Cpl. Michele Pihera said in an email. 
 
 Jail records show Hollins faces charges of driving with a suspended or revoked license, operating a vehicle with a suspended or revoked registration, failure to signal, having a brake light that's not in good repair, obstructing a law enforcement officer and having less than an ounce of marijuana. He was released on bond Thursday afternoon. 
 
 Police released McDonald's personnel file Thursday and said Bongiovanni's would be released Thursday. 
 
 McDonald was "an excellent example of a team player with a strong work ethic" who completed his work on time, was always willing to help others and was courteous and professional with the public, Bongiovanni wrote in annual evaluation last June. He gave McDonald a rating of "often exceeds expectations" in many categories and no rating lower than "generally meets expectations." 
 
 McDonald received a few commendations and recognitions, including sharing the officer of the month honor in November 2015. 
 
 He had filed three use-of-force reports explaining why he used his stun gun or physical force in the course of his duties. 
 
 He faced a disciplinary loss of his good driving record after he rear-ended another car in his patrol car in June 2015. But the officer who responded to the accident said in a letter to the department's safety review committee that it would have been very difficult for McDonald to avoid the wreck. ||||| Two police officers have been fired after video surfaced showing them punching and stomping a man during an arrest in Georgia. (Reuters) 
 
 Two Georgia police officers have been fired after videos surfaced on social media showing them punching and then kicking a man in the head, authorities said. 
 
 Gwinnett County police said late Thursday that Sgt. Michael Bongiovanni was fired after authorities discovered a video showing Bongiovanni punching the man in the face as the man stepped from a vehicle with his hands up. Earlier, authorities had fired Officer Robert McDonald, who was captured in a different video kicking the man in the head as he lay handcuffed on the ground. 
 
 “The revelations uncovered in this entire investigation are shocking,” police said in a statement after Bongiovanni’s termination. “ … We acknowledge that the actions of these two officers have implications that will be felt for some time. However, we also believe that our decisive action in terminating both officers speaks volumes about what is expected of each officer that wears a Gwinnett County Police badge.” 
 
 [Police shootings so far in 2017] 
 
 
 
 Former Gwinnett County police sergeant Michael Bongiovanni, left, and former police officer Robert McDonald. (Courtesy of Gwinnett County Police Department) 
 
 The incident, which quickly went viral on social media, occurred about 4 p.m. Wednesday. One video, which was shot from across the street, shows a man getting out of a vehicle with his hands raised before the arresting officer punches him in the face. 
 
 The other video, shot from a different angle, begins as that officer is struggling with the man as he gets out of the vehicle and raises his hands. Shortly after the man is subdued by the officer and handcuffed, a second officer arrives on the scene and kicks the man in the head. 
 
 A struggle ensues before the officers search the man’s pockets. Both officers are white; the man, who is black, was identified as 21-year-old Demetrius Bryan Hollins of Lawrenceville, Ga., according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 
 
 The nonprofit community group Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta condemned the officers Thursday evening in a Facebook post. 
 
 Gwinnett Police Kicks Handcuffed Black Man In The Face MAKE THIS VIRAL: We are DEMANDING that Gwinnett County Police Department immediately terminate this officer who viciously kicked a HANDCUFFED BLACK MAN lying on the ground in the middle of the street (off Sugarloaf Parkway) without cause and without merit. After brutally kicking him in the face, blood splattered everywhere. Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta is now hereby seeking to have criminal charges brought against this officer expeditiously. This is why we take to the streets and scream #BlackLivesMatter, it's because American police officers have ZERO regards for black lives, they beat us, shoot and kill us without a blink of an eye and the biggest problem is, it all goes UNCHALLENGED. We can almost betcha the Chief of Police will say, "I'm sorry but we can't speak on personnel matters or we are conducting a full investigation" and after the investigation they will say… "We have determined to INVESTIGATE OURSELVES and found no wrong doings"Posted By Sir Maejor, President of BLMGA #BlackLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatterATl #BlackLivesMatterGA #BlackLivesMatterAtlanta Posted by Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta on Wednesday, April 12, 2017 
 
 Hollins told NBC News that he was trying to get to the camera app on his own cellphone Wednesday to record the encounter. He said one officer started “shoving me in my car and telling me that I was never going to have a video, that I was never going to make the phone call to my mom. When I had my hands up, that’s when he punched me in the face.” 
 
 Hollins told the news station that when he was handcuffed and lying on the ground, “another cop came out of nowhere and stomped me in the face.” 
 
 He was charged with multiple traffic citations, obstruction of a police officer and possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. 
 
 Demetrius Hollins. (Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office) 
 
 Hollins’s attorney, Justin Miller, told NBC News that had the moment not been captured on video, it may have been overlooked. 
 
 “The fact that these guys felt so brazen as to … assault him in public in broad daylight in front of hundreds of onlookers and hundreds of cars is indicative of what they think is okay,” Miller told the news station. Without the videos, he added, “they would have painted him as the bad guy, arrested him, brushed it under the rug and probably did it to them again the next time they saw him.” 
 
 Gwinnett County Police Chief Butch Ayers said at a news conference Thursday that McDonald, a three-year veteran on the force, was responding to assist Bongiovanni during a traffic stop when he “got tunnel vision.” 
 
 Police said Hollins was pulled over for having a broken taillight and then resisted Bongiovanni. But by the time McDonald arrived, Hollis was on the ground and no longer resisting, Ayers said, noting that no use of force was necessary. 
 
 “This incident — this type of force and this action — was uncalled for,” the police chief said Thursday. “It shouldn’t have happened. There is no excuse for it. We have taken appropriate and swift action to deal with this. This officer and his actions do not represent the men and women of this police department who put their lives on the line every single day to protect this county.” 
 
 The chief said that the officer apologized for his actions but that the footage still made him angry. “I was upset and it felt like I had been gut-punched,” Ayers said. 
 
 During an internal investigation, authorities discovered a second video Thursday, filmed by a witness and posted online, that was “contrary to what was reported by Michael Bongiovanni,” police said in the statement. That video showed Bongiovanni strike the man in the face before the other officer had arrived, police said. 
 
 Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta also referred to the second video on its Facebook page. 
 
 Gwinnett County Police Officer Punches Demetrius Hollins In Th… NEWLY RELEASED VIDEO: Here is a second released video of the arresting officer brutally punching Demetrius Hollins in the face. After reviewing the police report in it's entire we have reasons to believe the arresting officer lied throughout his entire police report.We are now hereby demanding that Gwinnett County Police Department terminate the arresting officer and will also seek criminal charges against both officer involved. Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta will follow this case throughout its duration for up to the minuet information please LIKE us on twitter @SirMaejor and @OfficialBLMATL #GwinnettPolice #GwinnettCounty #GwinnettPD #GwinnettCountyPolice #SirMaejor #BlackLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatterATL #BlackLivesMatterAtlanta #BlackLivesMatterGA Posted by Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta on Thursday, April 13, 2017 
 
 Bongiovanni was hired in 1998 and graduated from the police academy in 1999, according to the police department. 
 
 The police chief said during the news conference that a plan is in place to outfit uniformed officers with body cameras by the end of the year. 
 
 Asked what message the incident sends, Ayers told reporters: “We have standards, we have policies, and we’re going to hold ourselves to those standards and to those policies. And if you violate those, there will be a swift investigation. And if those complaints are found to be sustained, action will be taken.” 
 
 This story has been updated. 
 
 MORE READING: 
 
 Video shows an officer slamming, then pummeling a black man accused of jaywalking 
 
 In a shift, the U.S. was not among the world’s leaders in executions last year 
 
 Jailed while pregnant: A woman claims guards ignored her pleas and killed her unborn baby ||||| Authorities are investigating the beating by Alameda County sheriff’s deputies of a man accused of ramming patrol cars and leading deputies on a high-speed chase last week that ended in San Francisco, officials said. 
 
 The beating of the man, identified as Stanislav Petrov, occurred early Thursday morning and was caught on surveillance video and released on YouTube by the San Francisco public defender’s office, which said it received the footage from someone who operates a security camera in the area. 
 
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 The grainy footage shows two Alameda County sheriff’s deputies chasing a man on foot. As the man slows, one officer tackles him and punches him twice. The second officer arrives and starts hitting Petrov with his baton. Soon both officers can be seen hitting Petrov with their batons. Sometimes Petrov can be seen on the ground and other times on his knees. Once the officers begin striking him, he does not appear to be resisting. 
 
 In the video, the officers strike Petrov with their batons more than 30 times before other officers arrive on the scene. Some critics likened the episode to the infamous 1991 Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King, which led to bloody civil unrest in Southern California after officers were acquitted the next year of wrongdoing in a state trial. 
 
 In last week’s incident, “I was shocked by the brutality,” Tamara Barak Aparton, a spokeswoman for the Public Defender told The Times on Sunday. “He is clearly not resisting. And they hit him multiple times in the head with their batons. It doesn’t look like they’re trying to subdue him. It looks like they’re trying to punish him or trying to exact revenge.” 
 
 One witness was asleep in a third-floor apartment, about 60 to 70 feet away from where Petrov fell, when awakened by sounds from below. 
 
 “I heard people yelling,” said Matt G., who asked that his full last name not be used because he was concerned about calling attention to himself. 
 
 The witness, who was among the first to make contact with the public defender, said he saw about the last 15 seconds of the altercation from his window. 
 
 “Right when I looked out, he was on his knees with his hands trying to block the batons. Then he fell to the ground. It’s not that he was resisting. He was just trying to protect himself with his hands,” the man told The Times in an interview Sunday. “It looked like the officers were taking out aggression. The blows were hitting him all over. He was just trying to protect himself from getting brutally injured.” 
 
 When police backup arrived seconds later, he said, his view of the scene was blocked and he could see nothing else clearly. 
 
 Officers on duty Sunday said they had no information about the incident and could not comment on the case. The press officer for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department could not be reached. But on Friday, the department announced that it was launching an internal investigation. 
 
 No decision has yet been made about whether the two officers would return to duty or in what capacity. 
 
 KQED News quoted the department as reporting that the officers were veterans and would not be immediately identified out of concern for their safety. 
 
 “If you look on social media, there’s a lot of threats that have been made against them — pretty vulgar threats,” Sgt. Ray Kelly said. “We have to worry about their safety, in addition to Mr. Petrov in the hospital, too. We don’t want people showing up there, protesters showing up there and causing a whole bunch of problems.” 
 
 The station also reporting that, as of Sunday, Petrov remained at San Francisco General Hospital, where he was visited by Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods. 
 
 Woods told KQED that Petrov had suffered multiple cuts to the back of his head and that his arms were “crushed.” 
 
 “From his elbow through his hands are swollen,” Woods said. “It looks like he has several broken bones in both of his hands or arm areas.” 
 
 Petrov was alert and able to talk, Woods added. 
 
 Authorities have not released Petrov’s age or city of residence. But a woman whom KQED identified as Petrov’s mother said she and her son immigrated to San Francisco from Ukraine 18 years ago and that her son is 28. She said he has been diagnosed with multiple mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress and depression. She said he had suffered several concussions in the past. 
 
 Petrov faces felony charges for ramming a squad car and injuring a deputy, then leading a high-speed chase to San Francisco. He also is being held on suspicion of having a loaded firearm in the stolen vehicle he was driving, possession of methamphetamine and multiple hit-and-runs. 
 
 The incident began about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the Sheriff’s Department. 
 
 Officers on patrol spotted what they believed to be a stolen 2015 Mercedes-Benz with Petrov at the wheel. As officers advanced, Petrov allegedly struck a patrol car, pushing it into a deputy, injuring the officer, Kelly told reporters. Petrov allegedly hit a second patrol car and then sped off, taking Interstate 580 through Oakland and then crossing the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, hitting speeds as high as 100 mph during the 40-mile pursuit. The chase ended, said Kelly, when Petrov hit a parked car in the Mission District and tried to run away. 
 
 Officers at the scene reported that they found a loaded gun in the Mercedes. 
 
 Another department spokesman, J.D. Nelson, told reporters that Petrov had three felony warrants and a misdemeanor warrant at the time of the encounter. 
 
 The local ABC affiliate interviewed a witness to the arrest. 
 
 "I heard just loud smack, smack, smacks. I really thought they were gunshots 'cause they were super loud," Redop Rundgren said. 
 
 Rundgren's apartment is above where the incident occurred. The screams woke him up, he told ABC News 7. 
 
 "They kept screaming, 'Get on the ground," pushing him and beating him continuously, he said. 
 
 "He started trying to get up and crawl away while they were beating him. That's when I heard his screaming like, 'Stop, help me' or something of the sort," Rundgren recalled. ||||| ADDS THAT ROWE IS AT TOP AND DUBOSE AT BOTTOM - This photo provided by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation shows the arrest of the two Georgia fugitives Donnie Rowe, top, and Ricky Dubose, bottom, in... (Associated Press) 
 
 SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Two escaped inmates sought in the killings of two guards on a Georgia prison bus were captured after a chase and being held at gunpoint by a rural Tennessee homeowner whose vehicle they were trying to steal, authorities said. 
 
 Donnie Rowe and Ricky Dubose were apprehended Thursday in the rural community of Christiana, Tennessee, ending a multi-state manhunt that began Tuesday morning. 
 
 "True bravery is what's caused us to stand before you tonight to talk about a successful capture instead of a tragic incident," Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn said at a news conference. "So I'm totally grateful to everyone involved." 
 
 Earlier in the day, police in nearby Shelbyville had responded to a call about a home invasion, where a couple had been held captive, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Nelly Miles said. 
 
 The suspects fled in the couple's vehicle and fired on sheriff's deputies chasing them on Interstate 24 about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Nashville, Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Bill Miller said. Rutherford County Sheriff Michael Fitzhugh said his deputies did not return fire and none of them was injured. 
 
 Rowe and Dubose crashed the car and bailed out, running into the woods, Miller said. They then came across a home set back on a long driveway. 
 
 The trooper said the homeowner looked outside and saw the two allegedly trying to steal his car. The man held the two at gunpoint with a neighbor he called for help until the sheriff's department could get there to arrest the fugitives. 
 
 The two were being held at the Rutherford County jail. 
 
 Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Greg Dozier said in a news release that he was relieved the two inmates were captured and no longer a threat to the public. 
 
 "They will be brought to justice swiftly for their heinous crime against our officers," he said, also expressing gratitude to all of the law enforcement officers who provided support and assistance in the search for the two men. 
 
 Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal applauded the "tireless efforts" of law enforcement but also turned his thoughts to the families of the two officers, saying their pain remains. 
 
 "We will do everything in our power to support their loved ones, and we will not forget their sacrifice and service," Deal said. 
 
 Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesman Josh DeVine said the bureau's agents will take part in processing the scene. 
 
 The two men had been on the run since early Tuesday, when they are accused of having killed Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue. 
 
 The two inmates overpowered and disarmed the guards on a bus about 6:45 a.m. Tuesday as 33 inmates were being driven between prisons, authorities have said. One of them fatally shot both guards, and then they jumped out of the bus and carjacked a driver who happened to pull up behind them on state Highway 16 in Putnam County, southeast of Atlanta, authorities said. 
 
 The two inmates then fled in the stolen Honda Civic and drove about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north to Madison, where they ransacked a home, stealing food and clothes and leaving their prison uniforms behind around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. 
 
 Late Tuesday night, about 12 hours after the home burglary, the pair stole a Ford pickup truck from a rock quarry about 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) from the burglarized home when the trail had gone cold. 
 
 The FBI announced a tip line and said pictures of the men and information about a $130,000 reward would appear on billboards in multiple states. TBI's Gwyn said Thursday he wasn't sure who would collect the reward. 
 
 Authorities warned that the men, who had escaped with the guards' 9 mm pistols, were considered very dangerous. Gwyn said investigators believe both weapons have been found at the site where the men crashed the vehicle. 
 
 Monica and Billue were transfer sergeants at Baldwin State Prison. Monica had been with the Georgia Department of Corrections since October 2009 and Billue since July 2007. 
 
 Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said the escaped inmates had been inside a secured area of the bus. He said he didn't know how they got through the locked cage to overpower the guards. 
 
 Protocol is to have two armed corrections officers on the bus, but the officers don't wear bullet-proof vests during transfers, Dozier said. 
 
 Both escapees were serving sentences for armed robbery and other crimes. The Department of Corrections said Rowe, 43, had been serving life without parole since 2002, and Dubose, 24, began a 20-year sentence in 2015. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
– Two videos circulating on social media showed a Georgia man being assaulted by two cops during a traffic stop this week, and now those cops have been fired, the AP reports. Robert McDonald was canned Thursday after the first video came to light involving motorist Demetrius Bryan Hollins, the Gwinnett County PD says. Michael Bongiovanni was let go later that day after a second video emerged, per the Washington Post. "The revelations uncovered in this entire investigation are shocking," read a Gwinnett PD statement tweeted Thursday night. Hollins, 21, had been pulled over in Lawrenceville around 4pm Wednesday by Bongiovanni, the police say, and as shown in a video that appeared on the Everything Georgia Twitter feed, Bongiovanni punched Hollins in the face after Hollins came out of the car with his hands up. The other video shows McDonald rushing over as Hollins was lying in the street and slamming his foot into Hollins' head. Hollins' lip and nose appeared to be bloodied in his booking photo. Bongiovanni's incident report said he had pulled Hollins over for a busted brake light and a lack of signaling while changing lanes. The officer said Hollins had started to "act strange," yell, and resist directions, and he remembered similarly disruptive behavior from a previous arrest. Hollins was released on bond Thursday after he was charged with the original citations, in addition to driving with a suspended or revoked license and registration and possessing less than an ounce of pot. (A California cop has been accused of pummeling a pedestrian—an incident that was also caught on video.)