Video shows cops tackling, arresting black man who was videotaping them on cellphone
The video begins with three police officers walking toward a man holding his cellphone as he points the camera their way. An officer asks why the cellphone camera is so close to his face. A few seconds later, the camera is on the ground pointed skyward, but still recording audio as officers wrestle with the man and ultimately arrest him.
In between, the man obeys police orders as he steps backward toward a sidewalk across the street. Still, the officers follow him closely, repeatedly telling him to get the camera out of their faces.
“You guys are pressing me out,” the man says just before the cops tackle him to the ground, knocking his cellphone from his hands. “Oh my God.”
Just after midnight on Sunday, police arrested a musician named Emanuel David Williams, 30, and charged him with breach of the peace, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence. Police said they were called to Williams’ Overtown apartment by his girlfriend, who was breaking up with him and concerned about retrieving her personal belongings.
Though Williams doesn’t dispute that account first reported by the Miami New Times, he said the three Miami officers seen in the video wouldn’t let him get into his apartment. Then they followed him closely as he backed up on the street, even as they ordered him to head that way. Then, according to Williams, after one of the officers swatted his phone away, they tackled him to the ground and punched him in the head.
“I was shocked my phone even picked up the part after they knocked it out of my hand. I only got my phone back after I got out of jail. I didn’t think my phone caught all that,” he told New Times.
Williams posted a pair of videos to his Instagram account on Tuesday after he got out of jail.
Miami police released a statement saying they were aware of the video “surfacing on social media” and that the department’s Internal Affairs division was looking into the incident.
Police said they were called to Williams’ apartment in the 1700 block of Northwest Second Court just before midnight Saturday by his girlfriend who was breaking up with him and concerned about getting her stuff. One of the arresting officers wrote that police escorted her to the apartment when Williams showed up ‘yelling, screaming and behaving belligerent.”
His arrest report says he approached the three officers and began recording on his cellphone. The officers say they ordered Williams to go to the other side of the street — which is confirmed by the video — and that as he did so, he continued yelling and acting out.
The video shows Williams walking backward at that point and the three officers following him, closely. When he gets to the sidewalk on the other side of the street, Williams says “I’m officially on the sidewalk, now what?” and continues to shoot video. An officer who walks toward Williams says, “Do not put the phone in my face.”
Said Williams: “That’s when I started to fear for my life.”
Then Williams is tackled. Three times he says, “I’m not resisting.” Replies an officer: “Ya, you are.”
His arrest report goes on to say that Williams tensed up while being placed in handcuffs and continued to struggle with officers as he was placed in the patrol car.
Fraternal Order of Police President Tommy Reyes said Thursday afternoon he had not seen the video and couldn’t comment.
Williams claimed Friday that the incident was the second time this year he had a confrontation with Miami police. He said back in April, an officer dragged him out of his car and made him sit in the back of the cop’s vehicle, before he was released. Police had not confirmed that account by Friday afternoon.
This story was originally published September 26, 2019 at 2:29 PM.