Brutal arrest of Black student in Florida shows benefits of recording police from new vantage point

A video that captures the brutal arrest of a black college student Withdrawn from his car and beaten He led to an investigation by the officers in Florida and asked the drivers to think about protecting themselves by placing a camera in their vehicles.

William McNEIL JR., February traffic stop, mounted on the instrument panel mobile phone camera caught. Jacksonville Sheriff Office, published by the body camera images, including the fists that cannot be visible, offered a unique view that offers the only clear images of the violence of civil servants.

McNEİL, because the match is foreseen to record from the vehicle, McNieil, one of the few lawyers who advised Civil Rights Lawyer Ben Crump, “We need to see first -hand and hear the first hand and Black’s driving in the context of the United States,” he said.

“All young people should record these interactions with law enforcement officers, Cr Crump said. Because what he tells us is what they put in the police report with George Floyd before realizing that the video exists, just like in George Floyd. “

His lawyers said McNEIL was withdrawn that day because the officers should be open due to bad weather. His camera shows him what he’s asking the officers what he’s doing. A few seconds later, a civil servant shredded his window, hit him as the driver sits in his seat, and then pulls him out of the car and punches him. According to a police report, after being hit on the ground, Mcneil was punched six times in his right thigh.

The event reports do not define the officer who punchs McNieil on his head. The officer, who shot Mcneil and shot him, explained in his power report: “Physical power was applied to the suspect and taken to the ground.”

However, after publishing the McNieil video online last month and becoming viral, the Şerif office launched an ongoing internal investigation. A sheriff office spokesman refused to comment on the case this week, although no lawsuit was filed for arrest.

Mcneil said the ordeal left him traumatized with a brain damage, a broken tooth and a few stitches on his lip. He accused his lawyers of trying to cover up what happened.

“Americans saw what America was on February 19, 2025, Har said Harry Daniels, Mcneil’s lawyers Harry Daniels. “We saw injustice. You saw that the police force was abused. But most importantly, we saw a young man who had a temperament to control himself in the face of brutality.”

The traffic stop, not only racially motivated, but also illegal, and everything from this stop is illegal, he said.

Mcneil is not the first black driver to record a video during a violent traffic stop – Philando Castile’s girlfriend LIVE LIVES AFTER BLOOD Death during the 2016 traffic stop near Minneapolis. However, the arrest of Mcneil, reminded that the mobile phone video can show a different version of the events from what is described in the police reports.

Christopher Mercado, who retired from the New York Police Department as a lieutenant, acknowledged that Mcneil’s legal team should record the police interactions of drivers and that a camera mounted on a driver’s car could offer a unique perspective.

“Use the technology in your own way,” said Mercado, who is an assistant professor at John Jay Criminal Justice College in New York. “There is nothing treacherous about it. Actually, I think it’s smart.”

Rod Brunson, Head of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland, said that he thinks that citizens encounter the police is a good idea – it does not worse.

“I think this is a form of protection – protecting them against false criminal claims or intervening in civil servants, Br said Brunson.

Although the Şerif office refused to speak with Associated Press this week, Şerif TK Waters spoke to the public about the arrest of McNEIL since the video of the match became viral. He returned to some of the allegations made by McNEİL’s lawyers and said that McNieil was told more than half a dozen to get out of the vehicle.

At a press conference last month, Waters emphasized the images of a knife in McNieil’s car. The officer who punched him claimed that McNEIL had reached the base of the car and that the deputies later found the knife.

Nevertheless, Crump showed that Mcneil’s video “never reached anything ve and wrote in a second civil servant report that McNEIL held his hands because the other officer broke the car window.

Mercado said that a camera in a driver’s vehicle could compensate for some police bodycams deficiencies that can have a narrow field of view that becomes more limited as an officer approached the person.

But, After Floyd’s police murderSome states and cities discussed how and when citizens should take the video of the police. The Constitution guarantees the right to register the police to the public, but a point of contention in some states is whether the registration of a civilian can interfere with the ability of civil servants to do their work. For example in Louisiana, A new law makes him a crime To approach a police officer in 25 feet (7.6 meters) in certain cases.

Waters accepted these restrictions at a press conference last year because he told the video. A wild brawl Among the officers and fans at the Everbank Stadium during a football match between Georgia and Florida universities last year.

The sheriff showed the Bodycam videos of the officers at the beginning of the conflict near the stadium. However, when the officers suppressed the suspect and put pressure against him, the images of bodycam were not caught too much, so the sheriff passed the stadium security video at a longer distance.

In the case of Mcneil, the bodycam video did not clearly caught the fists thrown. He said the case would be investigated immediately.

For the last 20 years, Brunson has been interviewing young black men in various USA with their law enforcement officers. When he first began to send research articles for academic examination, many readers did not believe the stories of the brutality by the civil servants.

“People living in a civil society do not expect to be treated by the police. For them, police interactions are mostly pleasant, mostly sincere,” Brunson said.

“That’s why it’s hard for people who have no constant relationship with the police to see that there was such a thing with the police,” he said. “And this place plays a big role because people can’t deny what they see.”