To the surprise of no one, officer Darren Wilson has been found falsifying reports and acting outside the law before:
Video footage has emerged showing Darren Wilson – the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri – threatening and arresting a resident who refused to stop filming him with a cellphone.
Wilson is seen standing near his Ferguson police SUV and warning Mike Arman: “If you wanna take a picture of me one more time, I’m gonna lock your ass up.” Arman, who had requested Wilson’s name, replies: “Sir, I’m not taking a picture, I’m recording this incident sir.”
The officer then walks to the porch of Arman’s home and apprehends him, after telling him that he does not have the right to film. The 15-second clip was uploaded to YouTube on Friday but recorded in 2013, according to police documents.
Arman, 30, was charged with failing to comply with Wilson’s orders. He claimed in an interview on Saturday that the charge was dropped after he told his lawyer he had video footage of the incident. Arman, who runs a small housing non-profit, has a criminal record and has previously been charged with resisting arrest.
“I was working on my porch with my toolbelt on and was being cordial,” Arman said of the incident. “But I wanted to safeguard myself by recording what happened.” Filming police officers carrying out their duties is widely considered to be legal and protected by the first amendment of the US constitution.
***Wilson wrote in his report that Arman became upset and said he wanted to record the encounter. Wilson said he told him “a voice recording would be acceptable” but Arman “refused to answer any questions or co-operate as he lifted the phone to begin a video recording of myself” and “stated that I must state my name to him” as Wilson asked for more information on the vehicles.
Arman disputed Wilson’s account of the start of their encounter, saying that he “began recording within moments of Wilson approaching the property” and that Wilson only mentioned a voice recording being acceptable after Arman had been arrested.
Despite being shown at the other end of Arman’s garden path, Wilson wrote in his report that he told Arman “to remove the camera from my face”. He claimed to have asked Arman to place his hands behind his back, which is not visible or audible from the recording. “I was forced to grab his wrists one at a time and secure them into handcuffs,” Wilson wrote.
He’s lucky Wilson didn’t kill him like he did Brown. Notice the nonverbals- hands on his hips, dismissive and disgusted, condescending and arrogant. Yeah, this guy would never slam his car in reverse to teach young black men a lesson for failing to “get the fuck off the road.”