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Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies put a man in a headlock and repeatedly punched him in the head outside his home in East Los Angeles, according to his family.

Deputies wrestled 34-year-old Alejandro Hernandez to the ground Monday, just before 4 p.m., and placed him in a headlock, according to his mother, Gabriela Ortega.

Hernandez’s family said he was washing his car outside his home when the confrontation began, but the Sheriff’s Department said he was walking in the street in the 3500 block of Floral Drive at the time. The deputies watched him move his hands toward his waistband similar to “someone who was possibly attempting to conceal something,” according to a Sheriff’s Department statement.