A US Army officer recently sued two Virginia state police officers after he was forced out of his car at gunpoint, pepper-sprayed multiple times, and handcuffed and forced to the ground.
Lieutenant Caron Nazario, who is black and Latino, is suing for $1 million in damages after two police officers in Windsor, Virginia violated his rights and used excessive force, according to CNN.
The incident happened on December 5, 2020, but detailed video of the incident has only just been released by US media. Two police officers, Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker, stopped a brand new Chevrolet Tahoe. The driver was Officer Caron Nazario, who was in uniform at the time.
“I was scared to get out,” Nazario said when the two officers pointed their guns at him. “Yeah, you should do it,” Gutierrez said.
Nazario repeatedly questioned why he was stopped. It was a brand new SUV and Nazario had only put temporary license plates on it.
But the officers didn’t buy the explanation. They reported to headquarters “an SUV with dark tinted windows and no license plate” at 6:34 p.m.
Nazario, on the other hand, insisted there was no reason why the officers couldn’t see the temporary license plate on the rear window.
“I couldn’t see anything inside because the windows were dark,” Crocker wrote in his report.
Nazario continued driving the SUV until police sirens blew up and stopped him at a roadside gas station, about a mile from the initial location.
The video shows two officers getting out of the car and pointing their guns at Nazario, who was wearing a uniform.
“What’s going on?” Nazario said. “I served my country and this is how I’m treated?”
“We gave you orders, so you just follow them,” Gutierrez said.
What happened next was that the two officers repeatedly threatened Nazario, threatening to use everything they could, including a stun gun and tear gas, to force the soldier out of the vehicle.
After Nazario opened the door and got out of the vehicle, Gutierrez repeatedly kneed him and ordered him to lie on the ground. The two officers used tear gas four times. Nazario, who was blinded by the tear gas, repeatedly asked why he was being treated like that, but was still restrained and handcuffed.
The two officers eventually released Nazario without charge after seeing the situation getting out of control, but told the American soldier to “keep quiet or his career will be ruined.”
“If you continue to challenge us, we will sanction you, take you to court, send a notice to your commander,” Gutierrez said.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring called the incident “unacceptable.” Mr. Herring said he is closely monitoring the incident, asking the Windsor Police Department to clarify what went wrong and not cover it up.
“This video shows that Lieutenant Nazario did nothing wrong to deserve this kind of police suppression,” Mr. Herring said.
