Victoria Police officers suspended over brutality claims

Victoria Police has taken action over three separate incidents of alleged brutality, suspending four officers and reassigning another.

Shocking CCTV footage showed a Victoria Police officer spraying a man with a garden hose. Source: ABC TV

Four Victoria Police officers have been suspended and another put on different duties over three separate alleged brutality incidents.

Head of Professional Standards Command, Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius, took the action on Friday after CCTV footage of the incidents was made public earlier in the week.

Three officers have been suspended over a September 2017 incident in which a disability pensioner was pinned down, beaten with a baton, capsicum sprayed, then hosed down in his Preston front yard.

Another officer has been suspended over the treatment of a man who held up a Preston pharmacy in February 2016 and was kicked and stomped on while handcuffed.

A fifth officer has been reassigned after a March 2015 incident at Bendigo, where an arrested man was thrown into a metal door at the police station.

"These are interim actions only whilst all three incidents are being investigated by IBAC (Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission)," Victoria Police said in a statement on Friday.

"As they remain under investigation by IBAC it would be inappropriate for Victoria Police to comment further."