Video shows Florida officer punching a Black man during a traffic stop

A police officer from Jacksonville, Florida, was “stripped of his duties” Monday after an online video showed that the white officer struck a black man on the face during a traffic stop in February, the authorities announced.

William McNeil Jr., 22, was arrested by an officer with the Jacksonville sheriff office on February 19 for driving without his headlights during the day, TK Waters said at a press conference.

In the video published on Instagram on Saturday, McNeil is seen sitting in his car, asking to speak with a sergeant. He said he was arrested because his headlights were turned off even if he still shed light on and was raining.

“No matter, you must always have headlights,” replied an officer on the video.

McNeil, sitting behind the steering wheel with his attached security belt, asks an officer to show him the law that the officer cited and asks to speak with a supervisor.

Five seconds later, another officer breaks the driver’s side window and hits McNeil in the face while asking him to get out of the car and show his hands.

During the meeting, the police asked McNeil seven times to leave his vehicle.

Waters said at the press conference that McNeil had not followed orders from officers after being ordered outside the car, which reached the level of criminal resistance.

“The law requires that a person complies with the command of a police officer when stopping traffic. There are no options,” said Waters. “Even if this person does not agree with the reason of this arrest officer.”

Waters said McNeil had been arrested as part of the conduct of a suspended driving license, resisting a police officer without violence and having less than 20 grams of marijuana.

McNeil finally pleaded guilty of having resisted a police officer and driving with a suspended permit, Waters said.

During the press conference, sheriff managers showed three cameras of the police body, none of whom has captured the moment when an officer only identified as “D. Bowers” struck McNeil in the face after refusing to get out of his car.

McNeil recorded the interaction on his mobile phone, who was in a holder of his dashboard.

While the state prosecutor’s office cleaned Bowers and two other officers of any reprehensible act, he had not seen the punch, Waters said.

The interaction is now under internal examination by the sheriff’s office, he said.

“I will not congratulate or defend the response of the Bowers agent,” said Waters, adding that Bowers has removed his privacy rights to allow the release of the video of the body camera. “He was stripped of his law application of the law, with an immediately effect.

“It is not because the force is ugly that it is illegal or contrary to public policy.”

The police can be seen in the video pulling McNeil from his vehicle and striking it again in the face before pushing it to the ground, lacerating his chin.

“What is the F — Don’t go with you?” One of the officers says that before another said to McNeil that he is arrested. You can see at least five officers hold it.

Instagram video had received more than 27,000 comments and was shared more than 100.00 times on Monday afternoon.

Another McNeil lawyer, Harry Daniels, said: “William felt that his rights were trampled on during the day so as not to have headlights. It’s a new one.

“The officers could easily have sent a sergeant to the scene to defuse,” he said.

Waters said McNeil had never filed a complaint with the department or showed the video to the authorities.

In 2023, the city of Jacksonville paid $ 200,000 to the family of Jamee Johnson, a 22 -year -old black student at Florida A & M University, after an officer arrested him and pulled it during a traffic stop for a violation of the seat belt in 2019.

The department was examined in 2023 after the video of the body camera showed a detective striking Le’Keian Woods, a 24 -year -old black man, with a face at least twice and a second detective when they repeated controls to show him.

Woods had fled when the police tried to arrest him as part of drug trafficking and the officers thought he was armed, said Jacksonville’s sheriff office at the time.