Bodycam video released Wednesday showed a Texas police officer who led a Black man down the street by rope in his socks admitting it wasn’t going to look good.
“This is gonna look so bad,” Galveston Police Officer Patrick Brosch was heard saying in one of the videos.
Galveston police identified Brosch and Officer Amanda Smith, who were both on horseback, when they led a handcuffed Donald Neely through the street August 3.
In the footage, Brosch can be heard asking Smith if she should get their truck to avoid making Neely, 43, walk. Smith responded that their sergeant wouldn’t approve of the officers separating.
“This is gonna look really bad,” Brosch said.
He repeated a version of the same statement just before beginning to lead Neely down the road.
“This is gonna look so bad,” he said.
Neely, who has a mental illness and was once homeless, was arrested for criminal trespass, Brosch said in the video.
Smith can be heard asking if Neely had shoes before making him walk in what appeared to be white socks.
“I’m not embarrassed neither,” Neely said at one point.
“You’re doing good Mr. Neely, but we got to do what we got to do too. You know,” Brosch responded.
In the video footage, officers can be heard asking the man why he keeps sleeping in buildings.
Because Neely was homeless and traveled with his belongings, he had to figure out what to do with a welding mask he had with him. He asked Brosch to put it on his head, the video showed.
He however, seemed to have trouble seeing because of the mask, and Brosch took it off.
“We’re walking. Let’s go,” Smith said. “Stand next to me because I’m going to drag you if not. You have to stand next to me.”
Brosch asked Smith during the ordeal if she wanted to go on a street with less traffic.
“Yeah, I want the less eyesight,” Smith says.
Galveston Police Chief Vernon L. Hale III, a Black man, apologized to Neely in August for the “unnecessary embarrassment” and said officers showed “poor judgment in this instance and could’ve waited for a transport unit at the location of the arrest.”
“My officers did not have any malicious intent at the time of the arrest, but we have immediately changed the policy to prevent the use of this technique and will review all mounted training and procedures for more appropriate methods,” Hale said, according to CBS News.
He also thanked the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office, who did an independent review of the arrest, for its work in a Facebook post Wednesday.
“I am studying the report now and will use its findings to make decisions in the near future about the next steps for the department,” Hale said on Facebook.
