Police were looking for another man, Michael Clay, when they saw Mumford sitting in a driveway.
Advertisement
The Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department released its own longer video, which shows a woman telling Mumford that he should have cooperated. On February 1, officers saw a man matching the description of Clay and approached him as he exited his auto. When he eventually moves to exit the vehicle, an officer tases him. However, after tasing and handcuffing the man, the officers realized they had the wrong guy.
When Mumford insisted on knowing what he had done wrong, demanding to see the warrant, he was tasered twice and handcuffed.
The officers arrested Mumford on obstruction charges, but he was later charged with violating his probation for a first-time drug offense.
Mumford sat in his auto and told police he just came from his probation officer, so he know there was no outstanding order for his arrest and he repeatedly demanded to see the warrant that authorities claimed to have. He also asked to see the warrant for his arrest.
Mumford’s attorney William Claiborne said in an interview with CBS News that incidents like Mumford’s are common.
“Why’re you askin’?” Mumford replies. “As a non-violent drug offender serving in a first-offender probation program, a pending probation violation could cost him his job, his college education, and seven years in prison: all for sitting in his own auto, minding his own business, and telling the truth”.
Police officers nation-wide face complex duties which require them to make decisions in an instant. The man then asked again, “show me the warrant”, but police began counting down from three and ended up tasing the man after he began trying to shut the auto door and demanding his friends call “his people”. The other officer does not tase Mumford yet; Mumford appears to reach for something on the floor of his vehicle, and an officer tells him, “Do not reach”.
“But here’s the deal, when I ask you for ID because you look a lot like the person I’m looking for, then living at this address, you give us ID”. He then chastised the young man for not giving him his ID when requested.
But the video shows Lockett never asked for his identification.
“We want to see the internal affairs records for these officers, the personnel files, has there been an investigation in the five months that have passed since this incident occurred”, Claiborne said. Instead, a neighbor said “he is not Michael“.
“We let the video speak for itself”, Claiborne said. The police responded by saying it is “not that far off”.
The chief released three body cams of the incident from the three officers, which we’ve posted below the attorney’s edited video. A neighbor nearby said “that’s not right” and the officer again said “it is all on video”.
In fact, Mumford repeated his first name in case the officer missed it the first time around. He asked for his name to which Mumford told him twice.
That’s the issue around the mistaken arrest of Patrick Mumford in Savannah, Georgia.
Advertisement
In a statement released Thursday night, Joseph Lumpkin, Sr., Chief of Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department criticized Claiborne’s video, calling it “misleading” and “intended to be inflammatory”.
