https://youtu.be/3Dhbr_02CJY

An Army lieutenant who was pulled over by two Windsor (Virginia) police officers, pepper sprayed, held at gunpoint and threatened with execution is suing the officers for violations of his civil rights, the New York Times reports. 

Caron Nazario, a Black and Latino 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army Medical Corps, was wearing his uniform while he was driving in Windsor when the police car pulled up behind him attempting to pull him over.  Nazario slowed down, turned on his hazard lights and signaled that he was turning into a well-lit BP gas station, he said for his safety and the safety of the officers.

Newly released body cam footage shows moments after the two officers, Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker, pepper-sprayed Nazario and had their guns drawn.  Nazario said he was “honestly afraid to get out” to which one of the police officers, “Yeah, you should be.”

Nazario claims the officers threatened to destroy his military career by bringing him up on multiple charges.  One of the cops said the driver was “fixin’ to ride the lightning,” a reference to the electric chair.

The officers claimed that they pulled Nazario over because his tinted windows were too dark and they couldn’t read the temporary licence Nazario had taped in his back window.  They also claimed he was “eluding” police, although the officers acknowledge Nazario was directing them to follow him to a well-lit area and Gutierrez said in the released recording during the encounter that they see that happen frequently.

Nazario was struck on the back of his legs to make him lie on the ground and he was handcuffed.  He stood, restrained, by his car until an EMS unit arrived.

Gutierrez said to Nazario that his shift supervisor gave him the discretion to release Nazario without a summons so long as Nazario would not “fight and argue” and “if you want to chill and let this go.”

Nazario, however, told his supervisors of the encounter immediately because he was so shaken by the incident.