BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – 24-hours after a news conference, the Baton Rouge Police Department released video of a viral arrest.
“It was unnecessary use of force giving the totality of the circumstances.”
The newly released video shows an officer kneeling on a teen while handcuffing him.
The attorney representing the teen said, “the teen as you can see on the video before the officers engaged him was already in a submissive position to give himself up. There was no reason to treat him in such manner.”
On July 9th, the teen was a passenger in a car being chased by BRPD. Once the vehicle stopped, the body camera shows the 17-year-old on his knees with his arms in the air. Haley claims, his client was man-handled while the driver, 22-year-old Kimani Smith was handled with care.
“It’s in direct contrast to the other individual who was the driver of the car who seems to be the more responsible party for what happened was taken away without incident.”
During Monday’s news conference, Baton Rouge’s Chief of Police, Murphy Paul, confirmed the officer did put a knee on the teen’s back but says it falls under approved techniques.
“That’s the training that he received when he went through the academy” said Paul.
After listening to the Chief and watching the video, the attorney representing the teen says, if that’s the training then it needs to be changed.
“There are times when officers need to use force, absolutely. This clearly was not one of those times” said Haley.
The attorney says, there are still concerns about where the knee was placed and if was excessive or not, noting the nationwide unrest surrounding similar cases.
“Even after George Floyd and those protests and the movement that’s still going they still don’t get it.”
