Police attempted to use Taser on Ahmaud Arbery during a 2017 incident

[SummerMadness]

Police attempted to use Taser on Ahmaud Arbery during a 2017 incident

Police in Glynn County, Georgia, attempted to use a Taser on Ahmaud Arbery during an incident in 2017, according to a police report and police body camera video obtained by The Guardian.

The events captured on the body camera do not appear to line up entirely with what the first responding officer wrote in his report.

After Arbery again declines to let the officers search his car, he heads toward the driver door and the officer who just arrived tells him, "Don't reach in it, buddy," and draws his Taser. Arbery backs at least three steps away from the car, the video shows, and his hands drift toward his pants pockets.

The officers instruct Arbery to take his hands out of his pockets, which he does immediately, holding them out wide in plain view. Still, one of the officers then deploys his Taser, which does not work. He curses and orders Arbery to the ground, the video shows. Arbery complies again, and only then does the original officer inform his colleague that he has already checked Arbery for weapons.

The police incident report suggests that Arbery posed a danger to the officers.

The original officer wrote in his report that after Arbery was instructed to remove his hands from his pockets, "Arbery did not take his hands out of his vehicle; therefore, (the other officer) attempted to deploy his Taser to protect himself and I from the possibility of death or serious bodily harm."

Yet another case of the police video and the report saying the opposite thing. Is there any review and repercussions for these officers? Of course not, the police act in an unscrupulous manner and continue because they are never checked on their abuses.