Black driver beaten by Fla. cops: ‘I was fighting for my rights’

(NewsNation) — An lawyer representing the Black operator seen successful a viral video being dragged and punched by achromatic constabulary officers successful Jacksonville, Florida, says helium plans to record a suit pursuing the alleged radical profiling.

William McNeil Jr., 22, told “CUOMO” connected Thursday helium was lasting up for himself successful February erstwhile sheriff’s deputies pulled him over, ostensibly due to the fact that helium didn’t person his headlights connected during inclement daylight upwind and wasn’t wearing a spot belt.

In video changeable from wrong his vehicle, McNeil asks to talk to a supervisor earlier achromatic constabulary officers interruption done the driver’s broadside window. One of the officers strikes him successful the face, and McNeil is pulled retired and struck again earlier helium is taken to the crushed and arrested.

“I knew I wasn’t getting pulled implicit lawfully, so, I was warring for my rights,” said McNeil, a biology pupil astatine Livingstone College successful Salisbury, North Carolina.

Florida incidental gains abrupt notoriety

The postulation halt that occurred aboriginal this twelvemonth has lone precocious garnered attraction aft the footage went viral — truthful overmuch so, that Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters this week released bodycam video of officers' brushwood with McNeil.

Waters, who is Black, said an interior reappraisal was underway and 1 of the officers has been stripped of his constabulary powers.

He said section prosecutors determined officers had not violated transgression law, but 1 of McNeil’s attorneys, Harry Daniels, said authorities did not adjacent fuss to interrogation his client. The Office of the State Attorney for the 4^th Judicial Circuit could not instantly beryllium reached for a response.

“Our enactment is clear. We’re going to prosecute justness for William. I’ve conscionable filed a lawsuit,” Daniels told “CUOMO.” “This is happening excessively overmuch successful our nation, and particularly successful Jacksonville.”

Daniels aboriginal said successful an email to NewsNation that the suit has not been filed, but said, “we program connected it.”

McNeil and his attorneys accidental the pupil suffered a breached tooth, a concussion and affectional trauma from the event.

Waters has said McNeil was charged with resisting a constabulary serviceman without violence, driving connected a suspended licence and possession of little than 20 grams of marijuana. He pleaded blameworthy to resisting constabulary and the suspended licence charges, published reports say.

Fla. sheriff to public: Keep unfastened mind

The sheriff has urged the public to reserve judgment. His bureau present says that it volition not merchandise further accusation astir the incidental due to the fact that of imaginable ineligible action.

Meantime, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expressed enactment for Waters' section and said the video from McNeil’s conveyance was posted online to enactment a “narrative.”

“That’s what happens successful truthful galore of these things,” DeSantis said. “There’s a unreserved to judgment. There’s a tendency to effort to get views and clicks by creating division.”

Medaria Arradondo, the erstwhile constabulary main of Minneapolis astatine the clip of George Floyd’s murder, said the recorded postulation halt whitethorn beryllium problematic for the Florida sheriff’s office, astatine slightest from the standpoint of assemblage relations.

“Regardless of the administrative probe result of this, what Sheriff Waters besides has to beryllium gauging close present is, however overmuch spot has been eroded successful that Jacksonville community?” Arradondo told “CUOMO.”