Resurfaced bodycam video showing the arrests of three Black young males who were DoorDashing in Wisconsin over the summer displays a textbook case of police harassment, racial profiling, retaliation, and civil rights violations.
That footage of a traffic stop on July 19, 2023, shows the Menomonee Falls Police pulling over a car with three Black males. YouTube channels like Patrolling Wisconsin and The Civil Rights Lawyer posted footage in recent days that racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
The beginning of the video shows a police vehicle following a car and attempting to conduct a traffic stop. Instead of pulling over on the street, the car drives into the parking lot of an apartment complex where the DoorDash delivery is addressed.
After the car is stopped, the responding officer tells the driver he pulled him over for speeding and that he isn’t allowed to deliver the food, but then starts questioning him about where he’s driving, his license plates, whose car he was driving, and why he was in Wisconsin when he has an Arkansas license.
The driver tells him he’s in Wisconsin visiting his older sister and driving his sister’s car. Even after the officer takes the driver’s license, he doesn’t run it in the police system.
He then tells all three of the occupants that the car smells like marijuana, questions them on the scent, and then requests all of them to step out of the car.
This is when things begin to escalate.
One of the passengers exits the car with his phone and repeatedly demands he put it back in the car. The officer tells him that he’s going to search the car for marijuana and tells him he’s not allowed to be on the phone.
When another passenger asks why he can’t have his phone on him, the officer responds, “We’re investigating something,” and another responding officer calls the order “lawful.”
The passenger with the phone turns away, and the officer grabs him and tries to snatch the phone away from him before grabbing him again, pushing him toward a brick wall, then handcuffing him. He also threatens to use the Taser on him because he claims the passenger was resisting.
After the passenger is cuffed, he tries to confirm with the officer if it’s his legal right to record. The officer doesn’t answer. All the arresting officer tells the passenger is that he’s being arrested for obstruction, and he’s placed in the back of the police vehicle.
For clarification, First Amendment rights dictate that it is indeed legal to record video and audio of any incident in a public space, including police encounters.
After the passenger’s arrest, the footage shows several police vehicles and officers at the scene. Why this traffic stop warranted such a heavy police presence is unknown since only one person was detained just for having a phone.
The driver poses that very question: “Why is there so many people here? It’s just three of us!”
Later on in the footage, a female officer tells the driver that some officers were called to the scene for “training.”
After arresting one of the occupants, the arresting officer walks back over to the other two and both try to question him about why one person in their group was arrested while they’re FaceTiming with a family member. Seeing this, the officer continues demanding that they put the phone in the car and refuses to answer their questions.
Finally, the group of officers splits the remaining two occupants up.
After some time passes, the responding officer walks up to an officer searching the car and asks, “We got enough to 1080 these guys and get the heck out of here? Or is it all in that bag?”
“There’s no weed. There’s just scales and bags,” the officer responds.
“The scales got some shake on it or anything?” the responding officer asks.
After the search, the officer brings a small plastic pack that officers are later heard saying is filled with weed, and the second passenger claims it. The officers cuff him and arrest him, too.
The passenger asks the driver to grab his phone off the ground while he’s being cuffed, but the officers restrict the driver from doing so, force him to the ground, and handcuff him, as well.
One of the officers even tells him, “Stop resisting,” when the driver didn’t appear to be starting a struggle.
At one point, the passenger yells at one of the officers, “Get your knee off him!”
During the driver’s arrest, he tells the officers, “I didn’t do nothing this whole time,” to which a female officer replies, “I know.”
When he asks why he was arrested, an officer tells him he’s under arrest for obstructing an investigation. The footage then shows officers sorting the driver’s and passengers’ belongings before ending.
What happens after this encounter isn’t clear. There’s no word on whether any of the officers involved in the traffic stop were investigated or penalized for their conduct. It’s also unknown if a lawsuit was ever filed against the department for civil rights violations. However, a man who identified himself as the arrestee’s father on Reddit wrote that he was charged with a felony resisting an officer (substantial bodily harm, soft tissue injury), which is a felony and the public defender has recommended that he take a deal.
Many people who watched the footage online were appalled at the conduct of the officers and the way the group was treated.
Watch the video below:
