Santiago Hernandez, 23, says on August 18 in the Bronx, an NYPD officer asked if she could frisk him, to which he agreed. "I turned around and put my hands up," Hernandez says. When the search came up empty, Hernandez asked why he was searched -- a legitimate question -- and that's when the situation turned ugly.

"I'm like, 'Miss what you doing? You are hurting my arm,'" Hernandez told ABC-7.

As both cell phone and surveillance video appear to confirm, Hernandez was immediately handcuffed. He was then brought down to the ground where up to six police officers, he says, took turn beating him and using pepper spray on him.

"She just was telling me to put my hands behind my back, but 'I'm like trying to understand what are you are arresting me for. Can you please tell me?'" Hernandez tells ABC-7's N.J. Burkett in the video below.