Two Virginia cops pulled their guns on a black man, Caron Nazario, after pulling him over at a gas station for a traffic stop. Nazario was driving home in his newly purchased Chevy Tahoe when two police officers stopped him and threatened him with their loaded guns demanding him to get out of the SUV. Nazario, who realised he was being held at gunpoint, placed his cellphone on his dashboard to make a video of the entire incident.
The incident took place on December 5th when the second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps was still wearing his full uniform en route home from work. A lawsuit was filed against the police officers. According to documents filed in the US district court, Norfolk in Eastern Virginia on Friday the incident started with the two officers namely Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker initiating a traffic stop against Nazario, a Latino man, who serves as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps.
During the incident, Nazario asked the police officers, "I'm serving this country, and this is how I'm treated?" according to the lieutenant's cellphone video. At one point in time, Nazario said he was afraid to exit the vehicle, when an officer responded, "Yeah, you should be," according to a video Nazario secretly filmed during the encounter. One of the police officers is heard shouting at the lieutenant, "You're receiving an order, obey it."
At the end of the footage, the officers pepper-sprayed him, handcuffed him, kneed him in the legs, and then threatened him with different charges and levels of violence if he complained about their conduct, according to video footage and legal filings. Nazario has sued the officers for racially profiling him.
Video: Virginia Police Exposed Assaulting Black Army Lieutenant
On the other hand, the accused police officers alleged that they pulled Nazario over as lieutenant did not have a license plate on the rear of his newly purchased SUV. While the lawsuit claims Gutierrez and Crocker "approached with guns pointed at the car, gave opposing instructions to a uniformed soldier behind the wheel, and then pepper-sprayed him – all while threatening him with different charges and levels of violence for non-compliance according to body camera footage and legal filings, the officers."
Moreover, Nazario's lawyer Jonathan Arthur said that he's a sworn member of the United States Army. He swears an oath to support to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic and the way those officers behaved implicates the oath that he takes, according to reports.
