The lawsuit by 2nd Lieutenant Caron Nazario, who is black and Latino, claims $ 1 million in compensation and claims two police officers in Windsor, Virginia, violated his rights under the first and fourth amendments.
CNN unsuccessfully tried to reach out to officers Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker for comment. It is unclear whether they have legal representatives who will comment on their behalf. CNN also reached out to Windsor police chief Rodney Riddle and Windsor town leaders for comment.
The incident was captured by a number of cameras, including the officers’ body cameras and Nazario’s phone. The footage and the case were obtained by CNN through Nazario’s lawyer.
“I’m honestly scared to get out,” Nazario told officers after approaching the vehicle with his weapons on and ordering him to get out of the vehicle.
“Yes,” says Gutierrez, “you must be it.”
The driver repeatedly asked the police why he was pulled over
Nazario, who was in uniform, was driving a new Chevrolet Tahoe on December 5, 2020 when he was pulled over, the lawsuit reads. The vehicle was new enough that Nazario did not have permanent license plates, but he had ‘cardboard temporary plates’ affixed to the inside of the rear window.
According to police reports submitted as evidence to the case, Crocker turned on his patrol vehicle’s lights and sirens to start a traffic stop for a black SUV ‘with dark tinted windows’ and no license plate at 18:34.
The lawsuit said the license plate was visible in the camera camera at three separate times. In his police report, Crocker admitted that he saw the sign later in the altercation.
Nazario’s car was traveling west at a low speed, Crocker wrote in the report, adding that the driver ‘ignored’ his lights and sirens. “I could not see the inside of the vehicle because of the window tint on all the windows,” Crocker wrote.
Gutierrez, in his own police vehicle to the east, turned around, police reports read, got behind Crocker’s vehicle and also turned on his lights and sirens.
The SUV stopped at a BP gas station in Windsor, about 20 miles west of Norfolk. According to the lawsuit, Nazario wanted to stop at a safe, well-lit place. By the time he stopped, he had walked less than a mile and one minute and 40 seconds had elapsed since Crocker activated his lights and siren, according to the lawsuit.
On the body material, the officers were seen leaving their vehicles, withdrawing their rifles and aiming at the sports utility vehicle. Gutierrez wrote the officers decided to carry out a ‘high risk stop’, citing the lack of vehicle plate, the driver’s delay in stopping and the vehicle’s ‘extremely dark window color’.
Crocker orders Nazario to show his hands. Footage shows Nazario obeying after he started recording the incident on his cellphone, but according to police reports, he initially refused. Crocker asks how many occupants are in the vehicle while Nazario asks, “What’s going on?”
The officers again told him to open the door and walk out. “I’m not getting out of the vehicle,” Nazario said. “What is happening?”
Officers approach the SUV, and Nazario says, ‘I serve this country, and that’s how I’m treated?’ Gutierrez replies that he is a veteran and ‘learned to obey’.
Gutierrez is said to have told Nazario that he “wants to make lightning, boy,” which according to the lawsuit is an “expression of execution”, especially with reference to the electric chair.
On the body material, Gutierrez, gun-drawn, loosened the velcro that may have been his stun gun at the same moment he made the statement. In his report, Gutierrez writes that at one point he switched from a firearm to the Taser before using pepper spray on Nazario.
“What did I do?”
Nazario asks again, “What’s going on? What did I do?”
“You received an assignment. Follow it,” Gutierrez said. Nazario replied that he was scared and Gutierrez told him to be.
Gutierrez then tells the lieutenant that he was pulled over for a ‘traffic violation’ and ‘detained’ for ‘obstruction of justice’ because he did not cooperate.
On the body material, Nazario is shown with his hands up and outside the window while officers try to open his door. Gutierrez’s report states that when Crocker tried to lock and unlock the driver’s door, Nazario slammed his hand away. According to the lawsuit, this statement is untrue, based on the camera video, and although he knew it was not true, Gutierrez included it in the report.
Gutierrez then tells Crocker to return four times according to the lawsuit before Nazario sprays pepper. He still yells at Nazario to take off his seat belt and get out of the car. Nazario says his dog is in the back of the vehicle and “choking” from the pepper spray.
With his hands still in the air, Nazario tells officers, “I grab my seat belt,” before getting out of the vehicle. The officers ordered him to the ground while Nazario remained standing by the vehicle and asked what was happening.
“You made it harder this way than you just had to comply,” Gutierrez heard in the body camera footage.
In the footage, officers wrestle Nazario to the ground and handcuff him while repeatedly saying, “It’s foked up.”
Footage shows the trend, says the lawsuit
Paramedics arrive shortly thereafter to treat Nazario for the pepper spray. At Nazario’s request, Crocker also opens the rear window of the vehicle to the dog that is in the back of a crate.
Bodycam footage shows Gutierrez telling Nazario that he understands that the lieutenant chose to continue driving before stopping at the gas station for safety reasons, and that it ‘happens all the time’ and ‘80% of the time – no always not – it’s a minority. “
The officers eventually released Nazario without charge. But the lawsuit alleges that the officers ‘were trying to displace Nazario’s silence by saying’ in no uncertain terms ‘that unless he’ would be silent ‘the officers would charge him’ with various crimes ‘and’ his military may destroy ‘career. ”
In the body camera footage, Gutierrez is heard telling Nazario that he spoke to the police chief and had two options: the officers could wait with him until he could drive home – “go do your service, continue around me to serve land “- and release him without charge. Or they can ‘raise the issue’, write him a ticket for no license plate exhibition and charge him with obstruction of justice.
“It’s not necessary to get it on your record,” Gutierrez heard in the camera recording. “If you want to fight and fight against it … if that’s what you want, we’ll charge you, go to court, notify the commander, do it all,” Gutierrez said.
In his report, Gutierrez wrote that he chose to let Nazario go because he knew the military could take criminal action against Nazario.
“Because I was a military veteran, I did not want to see his career ruined by one wrong decision,” Gutierrez says.
Nazario’s lawsuit states together that the footage is a wider trend among U.S. police officers.
“These cameras have captured footage of behavior consistent with a disgusting nationwide tendency of law enforcement officers, who believe they can work completely unpunished, unprofessional, reckless, racially biased, dangerous and sometimes fatal abuse of authority (including the issuance of unreasonable rights). -or-die,) ignores the clearly established mandates of the Constitution of these United States and the state and local laws, and uses the roles of legislator, judge, jury and executioner, and replaces the rule of law by their arbitrary and illegal actions, Reads the lawsuit.