What turns out to be an innocent black suspect ends up at the hospital with a bloody face and a broken rib -- courtesy of a pair of white Seattle police officers.

SPD defends the injuries as "justified" but finds itself again fighting an uphill public relations battle over accusations of racism and brutality.

KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne has videotape of the latest incident getting the city sued.

Halsne reports that the video tells part of the story, but it's our copy of the audio tape (of officers talking inside their patrol vehicle prior to the arrest) that is coming under scrutiny.

Undercover officers from the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct Anti-Crime Team were running a "drug traffic loitering" sting in January last year when Terry Jefferson's white Cadillac DeVille caught their attention. It’s unclear from public records if police knew Jefferson lived in the neighborhood.

According to an incident report, "Officers observed (suspect) S/Jefferson make a hand to hand exchange" near a 76 gas station at 23rd and Union. There is no video of that, but dash camera video obtained by KIRO Team 7 Investigators shows a marked cruiser stopped in front of the Cadillac a few blocks away. Jefferson says he thought police wanted to go past him on the narrow street, so he backed his car up on the curb out of the way.

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Police saw it differently, reporting to their superiors that "they believed the suspects were possibly concealing weapons and/or evidence."

Video and audio from the scene indicates the officers opened their car doors briefly and shouted, “Hey. Stop moving.  Hey,” as Jefferson started to  park his car. The officers shut their doors and drove forward a few feet, while one officer told the other inside the case “Just yank ‘em, right out.”

Gallery: 'Use of force' photos depict injuries

The passenger in Jefferson’s car tells KIRO Team 7 Investigators she only heard one command given to Jefferson – and that was to "turn the car off." 

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Even though Jefferson appears to comply with the request, within six seconds of exiting his cruiser, the first officer pulled Jefferson from his car and used a "straight arm bar takedown."

Reports say Jefferson “hit his face on the pavement."  Two officers spent the next 15 seconds behind the car door using "feet - knees- hands - and elbows" before getting Jefferson into custody.

Jefferson's attorney, James Bible, says the videotape proves the violence was unnecessary.

“The officers made a predetermined decision to yank him - that's precisely what they did. And after they yanked him, he was then laying on the ground and they proceeded to do what they did, which resulted in significant injury to Terry.”

Officers filed a "use of force report" and four commanders up the SPD chain signed off on the arrest as proper.

The collateral damage was documented at the hospital - Jefferson's lip, cheek, eyes, teeth, knees, and ribs took a beating. 

After finding no weapons or drugs in Jefferson's car, SPD arrested him for "obstruction."

Prosecutors later dropped that charge.

Bible, says he sees drug loitering and obstruction statues frequently misused on members of the minority community.

He told Halsne, “Essentially what it means is: we thought you were a drug dealer, you look like a drug dealer to us. You didn't have any drugs on you and because you didn't have any drugs on you, we, of course cannot be wrong, so somebody still has to go to jail.”

Despite how violent all this may look to a good deal of the public, independent police procedure analyst, and former Bellevue police chief, Don Van Blaricom, defends SPD's actions as "appropriate."   He reviewed the videotape before speaking with KIRO Team 7 Investigators.

“Had they shot him or something of that nature, I think we'd all be saying that was excessive, but what they did was they took him into custody, using physical force, no question about that, and he was injured in the process. I think that’s unfortunate, but it’s not unreasonable under the circumstances.”

That might not mean a lot to a jury when and if Jefferson's lawsuit gets to court.

Van Blaricom says SPD now has a "reputation" for civil rights violations - that make any violent interaction between white officers and black suspects – tougher to defend in the court of public opinion.

“Once you've had a bad incident,” Van Blaricom tells Halsne, “the (SPD gang unit detective Shandy) Cobaine incident is probably the most fresh in most people's minds -- after the public views that -- after Justice (the U.S. Justice Department) gets interested in that particular case - anything that occurs after is going to be somewhat tainted with suspicion, merely because of the fact there was prior misconduct. That's unfair, but that's the way it is.”

Team 7 Investigators ran a criminal background check on Jefferson, just like police did the evening he was arrested. We found a drug conviction in 1999 but a clean record for the past 12 years.

Jefferson’s attorneys filed a claim with the City of Seattle, which was recently denied. They are now planning to file a formal lawsuit against SPD.

The Justice Department’s Civil Right Division would not confirm or deny it was aware of Jefferson’s complaint, but confirmed that the Seattle Police Department was one of 16 departments nationwide which were currently under its investigation.