Harris County Sheriff's Office deputies' altercation caught on camera

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- This is not something you see every day: Two men in uniform in a confrontation with one another.

We obtained two vantage points of the encounter, in which one repeatedly shoves the other. And in one of the videos, the smaller of the two makes references to the other's wife, finances, and -- according to witnesses -- his ethnicity using a pejorative term.

"At first they're were in each others face and real close," explained one of the women who shot the videos. She asked we not identify her. "We tried to figure out if they were going to fight. That's why you hear people in the background asking if they're were fighting. Then they started shoving and you knew it was serious."

Sensing what she thought might become a fight, she pressed record.

"You don't see police officers fighting every day," she said. "What I've seen them do, it didn't look like it was good at all. There was shoving. It didn't just get verbal. It got physical. What if it went farther than that, who was going to break it up?"

Residents of the Greenspoint area who took the videos tell us they recognized both from regular patrols.

For its part, representatives from the Harris County Sheriff's Office met with us Tuesday night and viewed the video. They then sent us this statement:

"The Harris County Sheriff's Office is in receipt of viewer video from KTRK ABC-13. A grievance has been filed by two employees following the brief exchange. The matter will be addressed in accordance with HCSO policy."

We asked for a clarification about the grievance. A spokesman told us one employee filed a grievance against the other. They've not released any further information about their length of service or rank.