Who is the SC man in the viral video being beaten by Arkansas cops during an arrest?

Randal Worcester’s life before a passerby filmed a video of him lying on the ground with Arkansas law enforcement officers hitting him in the head and kneeing him in the legs was one of multiple short-stint jobs and travel between his parents’ home in Goose Creek and other family in Oklahoma.

At 27, he had worked as a cook, waiter and cashier at various fast-food restaurants, not holding any job for more than a few months.

His life has become a national rallying cry against police brutality since Sunday when the video was posted to social media. Since then, the officers involved have been suspended and investigations by state and federal agencies are underway to determine if they used excessive force.

Before then, Worcester and his family lived in a four-bedroom, 3,400 square-foot house in a subdivision in Goose Creek, about 20 miles north of Charleston. They moved there in 2012 when his parents — stepfather Eric Wedding and mother Amber Wedding — transferred from Nellis Air Force Base, just south of Las Vegas, to Joint Base Charleston. Both were career Air Force; he in munitions; she in non-destructive testing, but have since retired.

They married in 1998 when Worcester was 3 years old, Eric Wedding told the Daily Beast. Neither he or his wife could be reached for comment. They have a son and daughter together.

Worcester attended Stratford High School in Goose Creek, but left in 2012 without graduating, school records show.

His Facebook page shows he became interested in mixed martial arts at some point, and posted mirror images of his toned physique. A Facebook video from 2015 shows two young men breaking apart artwork with a metal baseball bat.

Worcester was arrested in 2014, court records show, and charged with third degree assault and battery. He pleaded guilty to fighting off emergency workers called after he fell off a bicycle and was sentenced to time served.

The Charleston Post and Courier reported “Worcester was ‘combative’ when they (Berkeley County Sheriff’s deputies) arrived on the scene, ‘attempting to fight anyone that approached, spitting and flailing his arms.’”

In June 2020, his mother filed a notice to quit with the Goose Creek Magistrate’s Office. That is effectively legal notice to leave the home.

Through that summer, Worcester checked in on Facebook twice in Norman, Oklahoma, outside Oklahoma City, but was back in Ladson in August and November of that year.

Last Sunday, Worcester showed up at a convenience store in Mulberry, Arkansas, some 900 miles from home. The store manager, Barbara Shoemake, told police he got some water and sat down outside. When she asked him to leave, “he got up and spit on me and told me he would cut my face up,” according to her written statement.

He told her to get back inside the store, then called her a “f… leach.” He rode off on his bicycle.

Mulberry Police Department officer Thell Riddle and Crawford County Sheriff’s Office deputies Zack King and Levi Garrett White responded. They found him at another store called Kountry X-Press.

Russell Wood, the attorney for King and White, said in a statement that before the passerby started filming the now-viral video, Worcester “viciously attacked Deputy White by grabbing him by the legs, lifting him up and body slamming him, head first, on the concrete parking lot.”

White hit his head on the concrete, sustaining a concussion and Worcester hit him in the back of the head and face, Wood said.

“Deputy White was incapacitated momentarily but remembers getting repeatedly hit in the head and then seeing the suspect fighting with Corporal King and the Mulberry officer,” Wood said.

He said White “re-engaged and used all force necessary to get the violent suspect under control and detained.”

“The amount of force authorized under the law is always relative to the offense the suspect commits,” Wood said. “In this case, this violent suspect showed his willingness to commit serious violence and then he continued to resist arrest, spit and bite at the officers and refused to allow the officers to get the handcuffs on him — hence the necessity for three officers.”

Wood also said Worcester told jail personnel he was not injured.

Wood said the entire episode was captured on dash cam video in the police car and asked for it to be released.

The video posted to social media and taken from a nearby car shows White punching Worcester with a clenched fist in the head, while another officer kneed him repeatedly in the leg. The third officer held him down.

Worcester was booked into the Crawford County Detention Center in Van Buren, Arkansas, and charged with resisting arrest, possessing an instrument of crime, criminal trespass, first-degree assault, first-degree terroristic threatening, second-degree battery, second-degree criminal mischief and second-degree assault.

He was released Monday on $15,000 bail.

Crawford County Sheriff Jimmy Damante said at a news conference Sunday his deputies are suspended with pay, pending the investigation.

“I hold all my employees accountable for their actions and will take appropriate measures in this matter,” Damante said.

He said his officers do not have body cameras or dash cams in their patrol cars and the dash cam video from the police car was turned over to State Police.

The police officer was also put on leave, Chief Shannon Gregory said.

Crawford County is home to about 70,000 residents and its biggest city, Van Buren, has about 23,000 residents. Mulberry, where the incident took place, has 1,500 residents and borders the Ozark Mountains along Interstate 40.

The Arkansas state police, the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department are investigating the incident.

Worcester pushed a Schwinn road bike with electrical tape wrapped around the handlebars as he walked from the jail Monday. He said he was “pretty good today. We’re just walking to the car.” Attorney Carrie Jernigan told him not to speak to reporters.

His family has hired Robert DiCello, an Ohio lawyer who specializes in civil and human rights violations, according to his website. DiCello and an associate did not return calls for comment.

His firm represents the family of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man from Akron, who was shot by police 46 times after running away from a traffic stop. His car was stopped because a tail light was broken and a license plate bulb was missing.

Arkansas State Police Col. Bill Bryant told the Associated Press the investigation would “take some time.”

“Once we get the facts and evidence, we’ll prepare a case file and a summary and turn it over to the prosecutor,” Bryant said.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson called the incident “reprehensible conduct” and “not consistent” with the teachings of the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy, AP reported.

“We do not know what would happen if that person would not have been videoing … whoever that is, I think she could have saved his life,” Jernigan said at a press conference, according to Reuters.