Army Lieutenant Sues Virginia Police Officers After Being Pepper Sprayed And Threatened

An army lieutenant is suing police officers in Virginia after a traffic stop resulted in several threats and a pepper spray attack.

The incident happened in December, but bodycam footage from the officers was recently released, TMZ reports. Officers Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker turned on their police lights when they noticed Lieutenant Caron Nazario, who is Black and Latino, was driving without plates.

However, the Chevy Tahoe appeared to be a newly purchased vehicle with the registrations attached to the window. Nazario opted to pull into a well-lit gas station that was under a mile away from where the police initially attempted to flag him down.

In the video, Nazario, who is dressed in his army uniform, holds his hand outside of the driver’s side window and tells the officers he is afraid to exit his vehicle. “Yeah, you should be!” one of the officers replied.

In the video, the offices can be heard yelling conflicting orders. While one officer tells Nazario to get out of the car, the other one orders him to put his hands out of the window.

The army lieutenant is also told he is “fixin’ to ride the lightning,” which is a line from the film “The Green Mile.” The film tells the story of a Black man who is scheduled to be executed.

Gutierrez pepper sprays Nazario multiple times and the lieutenant’s dog can be heard choking on the chemicals in the back. Once Nazario exits the video he is struck in the knees and falls to the ground. Nazario is later handcuffed and interrogated by the police officers.

In the lawsuit, Nazario claims his constitutional rights were violated, AP News reports.

“These cameras captured footage of behavior consistent with a disgusting nationwide trend of law enforcement officers, who, believing they can operate with complete impunity, engage in unprofessional, discourteous, racially-biased, dangerous, and sometimes deadly abuses of authority …” the lawsuit states.

Jonathan Arthur, Nazario’s attorney, revealed his client was traveling home when officers stopped him. “Graduated from Virginia State University. He was commissioned out of their ROTC program. He’s an officer in the United States armed forces,” Arthur stated. “These guys decide to do this to him.”

Both officers involved in the incident are still employed by the Windsor Police Service.