A shocking video that came to light has shown how an active serving US Army officer was stopped by two Virginia traffic cops and assaulted. The second lieutenant in the US Army is now suing the police officers, who drew their guns and pointed at him during a traffic stop. According to reports, the lawsuit alleges that the police officers even used a slang term to suggest he was facing execution before he was pepper-sprayed and knocked on the ground.
Caron Nazario, who is Black and Latino, filed a lawsuit on Friday in the US District Court against two Virginia police officers Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker for violating his civil rights. The cops pulled over Nazario's new Chevrolet Tahoe SUV for missing rear license plate and tinted windows. But according to the lawsuit documents, the SUV had temporary license plate taped to the rear window, which the officers would have been able to see before they even got to Nazario's car.
US Army officer assaulted, pepper-sprayed
Windsor Police Officer Daniel Crocker signalled Nazario's car to pull over and radioed in that he was attempting to pull over a vehicle with no license plate and tinted windows. When Nazario didn't immediately pull over, Crocker said the driver was "eluding police" and considered it a "high-risk traffic stop."
Joe Gutierrez, who was driving by during Crocker's call, decided to join in the traffic stop. As the body-cam video shows, both the officers drew their weapons as soon as the SUV was pulled over. Nazario could be seen dressed in his army uniform with his hands held in the air outside the driver's side window. Nazario was returning home from his duty station when the incident happened, his attorney Jonathan Arthur said in a statement.
The reason Nazario drove about a mile to pull over at a well-lit area was "for officer safety and out of respect for the officers," Arthur said. In fact, Gutierrez acknowledged that Nazario's decision to drive to a lighted area happens to him "a lot, and 80% of the time, it's a minority," Arthur said.
The video clearly showed Nazario was shaken up by the behaviour of the officers, who had been pointing their guns at him the entire time and shouting conflicting orders, telling him to put his hands out of the window while also telling him to open the door and step out.
When the officers came close to the door and Nazario was still holding his hands out of the window, the traffic cops tried to force him out of the vehicle. At one point, one of the officers yelled at Nazario to remove the seatbelt, but he responded saying "I don't even want to reach for my seatbelt, can you please? ... My hands are out, can you please — look, this is really messed up," Nazario stammered. The US Army officer had been pepper-sprayed and in agony.
The officers even threatened him with execution for noncompliance, the lawsuit claims. Nazario can be heard repeatedly asking the officers "What's going on?", to which officer Gutierrez replies, "What's going on? You're fixin' to ride the lightning, son."
"This is a colloquial expression for an execution, originating from glib reference to execution by the electric chair," the lawsuit states.
Nazario, at one point, even said he's afraid to get out of the vehicle, when Gutierrez said, "Yeah, you should be." Nazario, when exited his SUV, allegedly gets a knee-strike, which forces him to the ground.
"I can think of absolutely no reason under the sun as to why those officers should have exited their vehicles with their firearms trained on my client or any other," Arthur, his lawyer, said.
"These cameras captured footage of behavior consistent with a disgusting nationwide trend of law enforcement officers, who, believing they can operate with complete impunity, engage in unprofessional, discourteous, racially biased, dangerous and sometimes deadly abuses of authority ..." the lawsuit says.
Both traffic police officers remain on duty and no disciplinary action has been taken.
Watch the video below:
