MILWAUKEE (AP) — Video released Wednesday shows an interaction between Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown and four police officers after a parking violation quickly escalated when an officer asked the basketball guard to take his hands out of his pockets.
Police released footage from an officer’s body camera showing the Jan. 26 incident that started with an officer approaching Brown for double parking in a handicap spot at a Walgreens lot. The conversation between the officer and Brown immediately becomes tense when the officer asks for his driver’s license. The officer tells Brown to back up and Brown says, “For what? I ain’t did nothing.”
The first officer called for assistance and more than three squads arrived.
Before the video’s release, Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales apologized for how his department handled the arrest.
Brown was arrested about 2 a.m. Jan. 26 in the Walgreens parking lot, he was not charged.
Morales says officers “acted inappropriately” and that those officers had recently been disciplined. He says he’s “sorry this incident escalated to this level.”
Brown says his experience with Milwaukee police was wrong and “shouldn’t happen to anybody.”
Brown released a statement Wednesday after Morales issued the apology. The Bucks player says what should have been “a simple parking ticket turned into an attempt at police intimidation, followed by the unlawful use of physical force.”
He says, “Situations like mine and worse happen every day in the black community.” The Milwaukee Bucks, who has no intention to drop Brown, also released a statement.
The team says Brown has their “full support as he shares his story and takes action to provide accountability” and that Brown’s experience “isn’t an isolated case.”
The president of the NAACP in Milwaukee says he doesn’t see anything in a newly released police body-camera video that would warrant officers using a stun gun on Brown.
Fred Royal says he thinks the officer who interacted with Brown should have done a better job of explaining the reason why he was questioning him.
Royal says he finds it “disturbing that an officer would incite an argument over a parking citation.”
The group Black Leaders Organizing for Communities said the video “is yet another example of police using excessive force with Black people in situations that do not call for it.”
Brown says he’s planning to sue the Milwaukee Police Department.
Associated Press contributed to this story.
