Punching cop likes the Hollywood spotlight
Lt. Jonathan D. Josey isn't just a tough-talking cop in real life. He also plays one on TV. In a bizarre twist, the Highway Patrol supervisor who suckerpunched a woman after Sunday's Puerto Rican Day Parade - earning national scorn when a YouTube video of the assault went viral - is a local actor with Hollywood aspirations.
Highway Patrol Lt. Jonathan D. Josey isn't just a tough-talking cop in real life. He also plays one on TV.
In a bizarre twist, the Highway Patrol supervisor who suckerpunched a woman after Sunday's Puerto Rican Day Parade - earning national scorn when a YouTube video of the assault went viral - is a local actor with Hollywood aspirations.
Josey, 40, played a detective in the 2011 movie "Operation: Get Rid of Pinky" (see him in the trailer here), a gym instructor in the 2010 movie "Sure Looks Good" and a lawyer in the 2011 movie "Love and Litigation." He runs a production company "Brothers In Blue" with his friend Morgan D. Miller, according to IMDb profile, which also notes that he is "good friends with (comedian) TuRae."
Josey also had a "small, menial role" in the 2009 blockbuster "Law Abiding Citizen," he told "The Anti-Social Show" in a YouTube interview posted in March. Josey is downright jovial in the interview as he discusses his movie and stage work.
"You got to have like HD, BluRay, and put it on pause ... and then you can catch me," Josey laughed of his passing appearance in the flick. "They didn't want me to make Jamie Foxx look real, real short, so ..."
Josey also works locally as a stage actor, comedian and event promoter, according to his profile on gokashproductions.com, which produced a 2010 stage play in which he acted.
The viral video that has gotten Josey the kind of spotlight he doesn't want shows him punching Aida Guzman twice in the head from behind as she walked away from a group of police officers at 5th Street and Lehigh Avenue in North Philly. The incident occurred moments after members of a nearby crowd tossed some unknown liquids at the cops; it's unclear from the video if Guzman threw anything at the officers.
The punch sent Guzman, a 39-year-old mother of three from Chester, to the ground with a bloody lip. She was handcuffed and charged with disorderly conduct.
Josey, a 19-year veteran and former Daily News Sexy Single, has been placed on desk duty, pending the results of an Internal Affairs investigation.