Body camera video from last month shows an Oklahoma City police officer dragging down and handcuffing a 71-year-old driver in a violent way.
Police said that the driver was taken to the hospital with serious injuries after the stop on October 27 and that the officer was put on administrative leave.
Police haven’t released the name of the cop seen on body camera footage stopping a driver for making an illegal U-turn after a small accident.
“Force was used, and an elderly man was seriously hurt and had to be hospitalized,” police said in a statement. “Right away, an investigation was started, and the officer was put on administrative leave until the investigation was over.”
The event will soon be shared with the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office because police are dedicated to being open and accountable, the statement said. As of Tuesday, an Oklahoma City police spokeswoman would not say anything else.
Thuan Nguyen, president of the Vietnamese American Community of Oklahoma, said that Tuesday’s driver was 71-year-old Lich Vu, who is in the hospital with a broken head. Vu’s family members could not be reached for comments on Tuesday.
The officer’s body camera shows him telling the driver, with the door open, that he is writing a ticket for making a wrong U-turn. “I didn’t U-turn,” the driver says.
The video shows the police officer asking the man to sign the ticket. She tells him it’s not an admission of guilt but a contract that he can take care of later.
The driver says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and adds that another car hit his. “Me?” How to Cite? “She hit me, and I got a ticket?” He tells the police officer. As he gets out of the car, the officer tells them that they can stop fighting.
“We don’t argue on the side of the road,” the officer says, adding that the driver will go to jail if he doesn’t sign the ticket. “I’m ready to go to jail,” says the driver.
The cop probably gets mad and says, “ridiculous” in response to what the driver said. The officer then talks for a short time with a woman who got a ticket but was told she could leave. The video shows that the cop then asked for another unit.
The second woman on the tape tells the officer that the driver is her husband and that they did not turn around.
The man and the police officer keep fighting, and the driver puts his index finger to his mouth as if to tell the police officer to stop.
The police officer then grabs the man by the hand, pulls it behind his back, and knocks him down. The cop ties up the man while he is on his stomach and both hands are behind his back. The video ends when the police officer says he will call an ambulance.
Nguyen says it’s clear that the police officer used too much force and the person should be let go. “We don’t want our police or our district attorney to treat it like nothing.” “We want the truth to be told,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen said the police officer looked tense when Vu made the finger move to signal “be quiet.” Nguyen said he had talked about how police chiefs treat people in the Vietnamese community.
He said, “We are always the last ones to be heard.” “That means our words always come last, no matter if we’re at fault or not.” In some cases, that means there is unconscious bias.
The event has also caused his own group to talk about how they should deal with the police to avoid situations that could make things worse.