A video showing Jackonsville sheriff's deputies punching and dragging a Black man from his car during a traffic stop has sparked nationwide outrage, with civil rights lawyers accusing authorities of fabricating the arrest report.
The footage shows William McNeil Jr., 22, sitting in the driver's seat, asking to speak to the deputies' supervisor, when deputies broke his window, punched him in the face, pulled him from the vehicle, punched him again and threw him to the ground.
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters says there's more to the story than the cellphone video that went viral on the Internet. He warned the public about “a rush to judgment” that could lead to faulty conclusions. McNeil's lawyers say the video clearly depicts police brutality.
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Body camera footage of the encounter shows that McNeil had been repeatedly told to exit the vehicle, and though McNeil earlier had his car door open while talking with authorities, he later closed it and appeared to keep it locked for about three minutes before deputies forcibly removed him. The vantage point of the bodycam footage that was released makes it difficult to see the punches that were thrown.
McNeil., along with his family and attorneys, is set to host a news conference Wednesday at St. Paul Church of Jacksonville. He has retained Ben Crump, a Black civil rights attorney who has gained national prominence representing victims of police brutality and vigilante violence.
McNeil's attorneys call the cellphone footage ‘disturbing’
The cellphone footage from the Feb. 19 arrest shows that seconds before being dragged outside, McNeil had his hands up and did not appear to be resisting as he asked, “What is your reason?” He had pulled over and been accused of not having his headlights on, even though it was daytime, his lawyers said.
“What happened to William McNeil Jr. is a disturbing reminder that even the most basic rights — like asking why you’ve been pulled over — can be met with violence for Black Americans,” lawyers Crump and Harry Daniels said in a statement.
“William was calm and compliant,” they said. “Yet instead of answers, he got his window smashed and was punched in the face, all over a questionable claim about headlights in broad daylight.”
The sheriff said the cellphone camera footage from inside the car “does not comprehensively capture the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
“Part of that stems from the distance and perspective of the recording cellphone camera,” the sheriff said in a statement, adding that the video did not capture events that occurred before officers decided to arrest McNeil.
Cameras “can only capture what can be seen and heard,” the sheriff added. “So much context and depth are absent from recorded footage because a camera simply cannot capture what is known to the people depicted in it.”
Authorities say McNeil was reaching down, near where a knife was
A key point of contention in the arrest report is a claim that McNeil was reaching toward an area where a knife was. Deputies later found the knife on the driver's side floorboard of his car when they searched it after taking McNeil into custody.
“The suspect was reaching for the floorboard of the vehicle where a large knife was sitting,” Officer D. Bowers wrote in his report. “The suspect continued to attempt to pull away from officers and refused to place his hands behind his back.”
Bowers does not mention any punches being thrown in his report, and describes the force this way: “Physical force was applied to the suspect and he was taken to the ground.”
In a separate report, a second officer describes knocking McNeil to the ground by grabbing his legs and driving his shoulders into him. Then, he delivered six closed-fist punches to the hamstring of McNeil's right thigh, he said.
“After delivering the six closed fist strikes, the subject stopped resisting” and was handcuffed by another officer, he wrote.
McNeil's attorneys say he was ‘never combative’
Crump and Daniels called Bowers' report on the knife a "fabrication,” saying that “he never reaches for anything.”
“The only time he moves at all is when the officer knocks him over by punching him in his face," they said. "Then this young man calmly sits back straight and holds his empty hands up.”
“He’s never combative, never raises his voice and he certainly never reaches for a knife,” they added. “He simply asks for a supervisor and then they break his window and beat him yet, somehow, the report failed to mention that.”
The second deputy, who punched McNeil in the thigh, observed that McNeil kept his hands up as Bowers smashed the window.
“After Ofc. Bowers opened the door, the subject refused to exit the vehicle, but kept his hands up," the second deputy wrote. "With the subject’s hands up, I reached in and unbuckled his seat belt, telling him to exit the vehicle.”
McNeil was charged with resisting a police officer without violence; driving with a suspended license and having less than 20 grams of marijuana, Waters said. He pleaded guilty to the charges of resisting an officer and driving with a suspended license, Waters said.
Waters said the sheriff’s office on Sunday became aware that the cellphone video was circulating on social media. Investigations then began, and the State Attorney’s Office determined that no officers violated any criminal laws, he said at a news briefing.
An “administrative review” to determine whether officers violated any department policies is still ongoing, he said.
