Police are accused of threatening, and pulling a gun on a Black Army lieutenant during Virginia traffic
Virginia police pulled out a gun at a Black Army police officer during a car stop and threatened to take him out of the parking lot, according to a serviceman’s case and a video of the encounter.
US Army Lt. Caron Nazario was driving on December 5, 2020, in his recently purchased Chevrolet Tahoe when he met police on the US Highway 460 in Windsor, about 30 miles west of the city of Norfolk, the court-martial said. installed last. He was wearing a uniform during the stand.
Nazario, black and Latin, admitted his complaint that he did not fall short. Instead he turned on his emergency lights and continued for another 100 seconds, driving below the speed limit, so that he could park safely in a gas station less than a mile below the road.
US Army Lieutenant Caron Nazario was driving his newly purchased Chevy Tahoe when two police officers dragged him to Windsor, Va. December 5, 2020.
US Army Lieutenant Caron Nazario was driving his newly purchased Chevy Tahoe when two police officers dragged him to Windsor, Va. December 5, 2020.
It was then that Windsor police officers Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker fired shots at Nazario, who was accused of driving without plates, according to the case with body camera images.
Nazario insisted that he had followed police orders to keep his hands out of the window, but police were reportedly furious when he asked what was wrong with the pullover.
“What’s going on? You’re ready to ride in the light, son,” Gutierrez said, according to the case with the body camera video.
“This is a common expression of murder, based on the reference to an electric chair,” Nazario’s lawyer Jonathan Arthur wrote in court.
Virginia recently banned capital punishment, but killed prisoners in an electric chair more than a hundred times. The last prisoner to face the ordeal was Robert Charles Gleason Jr., 42, who pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and then threatened to carry on his life until he was sentenced to death. He was electrocuted on January 16, 2013.
Nazario told police he was “absolutely scared to get out” of his SUV, the video of the incident showed, before Officer Gutierrez responded, “Yes, you should be!”
Footage also shows that Nazario sprayed the pepper several times, “causing him severe and immediate pain,” the case said. It also led to “extensive property damage to Lt. Nazario’s car and the suffocation of Lt. Nazario’s dog, who was sitting in the back of Lt. Nazario’s car, protected in a crate,” according to the suit.
“Gutierrez responded by kneeling on Lt. Nazario’s legs to force Lt. Nazario who was already law-abiding and blindfolded him to handcuff him,” Arthur wrote. “Despite the fact that Nazario was on the ground and in tears, Gutierrez and Crocker continued to beat Lt. Nazario.”
The officers later warned Nazario not to complain about the way they treated him, threatening to charge him with criminal activities, the case said. If the Lieutenant is “cold and let this pass,” then no charges will be laid, according to Arthur.
Nazario was ultimately not charged with criminal activity or cited for any other traffic offenses, his lawyer said. The new car tag was clearly visible on the back window of Lt. Nazario, Arthur said.
The Windsor city attorney did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Saturday. There was no response from the Windsor Police Department’s main telephone line. And the officers could not be reached for comment.
The mayor told the Virginian Pilot that the officers were still working for the police department