Colorado Springs, CO – A video taken by a Colorado Springs man during a March traffic stop has gotten more than 30,000 views on YouTube and is the subject of a Colorado Springs Police Department investigation.
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Police say they aren’t commenting on the investigation or traffic stop, which a local ACLU official said appears to be a case of racial profiling.
Ryan Brown filmed the video when he and his brother Benjamin were pulled over but had to stop when police put him in handcuffs, the Colorado Springs Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/1bs7sgT ).
Brown’s video show that Officer David Nelson didn’t answer repeated questions about why the brothers were being pulled over.
It shows Benjamin Brown, who was driving, being patted down while in handcuffs. Then Officer Allison Detwiler opened Brown’s passenger door pulled him out of the vehicle with Nelson’s help, according to the video.
Benjamin Brown says he was sitting in the police car and watched police wrestle his brother to the ground at gunpoint.
“I was scared that the officer was going to pull the trigger,” he said.
“This looks to me like a case of racial profiling, a case of police investigating what African Americans call ‘driving while black,'” said American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado legal director Mark Silverstein.
He says couldn’t come up with a legitimate reason for police to handcuff and search Benjamin Brown after watching the video and reading the police report.
Police spokeswoman Buckley told AP she could not immediately comment on the procedures citizens should expect to be followed under such circumstances.
Ryan Brown was ticketed for resisting and interference with a public official.
Benjamin Brown was ticketed for compulsory insurance and obstruction of view — a charge his brother believes is related to a cracked windshield.
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Information from: The Gazette, http://www.gazette.com
This footage is not going to go over well with other “persons of color.”
Doesn’t surprise me at all.