Accusations of police misconduct arose after Brandeis police placed a student in protective custody in the Foster Mods early Saturday morning.Walaa Sbait '08, a Palestinian student from Haifa, said he was leaving the Mods around 1:40 a.m. Saturday when he saw a police car pulling into the crowded quad. That's where Sbait's account and the police's sharply diverge.

The police, who came in response to a disturbance call on a night the Mods were full of partying students, said that Sbait threw himself toward a police car and sparked a heated confrontation with an officer Public Safety identified as Thomas Espada.

But Sbait, who was released from the Waltham Police station at 10 a.m. Saturday and is not facing criminal charges, said he backed away from the police car, and before he knew it, Espada was threatening him with pepper spray.

Every student witness interviewed seemed to agree that the police made a simple occurance worse.

"They came across a situation that could have been resolved really quickly, really easily without confrontation," Alex Mithoefer '09 said. "And this one officer created a problem where there wasn't one."

Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan, who typically speaks for the department, disputed allegations of police misconduct.

"I don't see anything in the report that it was excessive," he said. "People can take exception to anything. But we have to err on the side of caution, which it looks like the officers did."

But Sbait, who is exploring possible legal action against how Espada treated him, said he felt humiliated by how the officers treated him, and insisted he was taken into custody for no reason.

"The Brandeis police are supposed to help students," he said. "They are abusing their uniforms. They are abusing the justice that Brandeis stands for."

It would seem the source of the confrontation happened in a span of about 15 seconds - the only 15 seconds that no one besides Sbait and the police officer seemed to see.

Will Chalmus '07, Sbait's roomate, said he and Sbait were walking back to Chalmus' car when Sbait fell a couple steps behind to say goodbye to people.

"On the way to my car, he was two steps behind me, and now he's locked up and I don't know what he did," Chalmus said. "There's nothing he could have done [during that time] to get arrested."

But Callahan said Sbait threw himself toward the car, and that once the officer got out, Sbait was belligerent, disorderly and uncooperative, eventually flailing his arms and screaming in protest.

"It's kind of unusual that someone would throw themselves in front of a moving car," Callahan said.

But Sbait vehemently denied that claim, and said he was calm and collected when speaking with the officer.

Witnesses, while acknowledging that Sbait gradually grew more combative, implied that Espada was more responsible for the escalation. Several witnesses said they heard Espada threatening to mace Sbait and friends who had come to help him and even observers gathering around the scene.

"All [Espada] said was 'cooperate or I'll arrest you,' and he never gave me a chance to cooperate," Sbait said.

The police and Sbait's accounts diverge in other ways. The police report said Sbait was flailing his arms frantically; Sbait and witnesses said his hands were always on the police car. The report also said Sbait was drunk; he denied being intoxicated.

The report also went on to say Sbait repeatedly slammed his face against the partition separating the front and back seats as the car was pulling away. Witnesses said he held up a peace sign against the window.

But these disputes aside, what witnesses saw clearly left them jaded.

"It was a terrible abuse of their authority," Mithoefer said.

Chalmus said: "Something needs to happen with the situation. The way they reacted is only going to create more problems in the future."

But Callahan, who declined to comment on whether Sbait would face University judicial charges, said that "certain things, we have to do, for the good of people."

Jonathan Zimmerman contributed reporting from the Foster Mods