The South Euclid Police Department released footage on Wednesday of a traffic stop in the Ohio town in which an officer held a Black woman at gunpoint as her child was in the mother’s vehicle.
The release of the body camera and dashcam footage comes after a witness posted footage of the Oct. 12 encounter to Instagram. Along with videos of the incident, which were posted to Facebook, the department also offered an explanation as to why the officer pulled his gun, claiming the windows of the vehicle were heavily tinted.
In the dashcam video, the officer pulled over a red SUV which appeared to immediately pull over to the side of Trebisky Road in Euclid, Ohio, before taking off again and driving away from the patrol car.
The car stopped along the side of the road second time after a brief half-mile pursuit. The officer then repeatedly instructed the driver to roll down the windows, turn the car off, put the keys on the roof and to make her hands visible outside of the window. The officer called for backup after the woman did not comply.
The bodycam footage shows that the officer pulled out his gun and aimed it at the woman for about 80 seconds after she pulled over the vehicle for the second time as he continued to ask her to put her hands out of the window.
The woman eventually exited the vehicle and began to move toward the officers. “You have your gun pointed at me,” she said at one point.
“Just come here, come here,” the officer who arrived as backup said.
“I don’t feel comfortable,” the woman said.
When the woman said that she did not have a gun, the officer is heard saying, “We don’t know that.”
When officers asked how many people were in the vehicle, the woman said she was with her daughter.
“I’m confused,” she said at one point. “Am I being arrested? ‘Cause I’m not even sure what’s going on here.”
“There could be 20 people in that car for all I know,” and officer said, in reference to the vehicle’s tinted windows.
“When the officer attempted to stop the vehicle, it initially failed to stop,” the Facebook post says. “When the vehicle finally stopped on Trebisky Road, the officer noted that the windows on the car were tinted so dark that he could not see inside the vehicle,” the department said.
The woman said she did not know why she had been stopped. “I didn’t even know you were pulling me over, I’m thinking I’m in your way or something,” she said.
After the woman presented her ID, the officer told her she was initially stopped for speeding, and driving 55 mph in a 35 mph zone.
The woman eventually is issued a citation and allowed to leave.
