Like a growing number of concerned Wayne County residents, I recently watched the Fox 2 News broadcast of a cellphone video that captured a highly disturbing and questionable physical altercation between members of the Redford police, a tow truck driver, and a young man that reportedly took place on the evening of September 27. And like all of us who witnessed this altercation remotely, I was not at the scene so I can only go by what I saw in the video.
As someone who has served in law enforcement in Wayne County for more than 40 years, I feel it is important to make note of that fact in the interest of fairness because none of us knows what happened at the scene before the cell phone began recording. However, there is enough questionable activity captured on the video to raise legitimate questions any ordinary concerned citizen would want answers to.
For example, the video shows the tow truck driver shoving the young man. The young man responds in kind by shoving the tow truck driver. At that point a policeman, who is already on the scene, can be seen rushing the young man and taking him down to the ground. Once the young man is on the ground and being restrained by the police officer, the tow truck driver appears to stomp the young man not once but twice. There are other police officers on the scene but none of them make any visible move to restrain the tow truck driver or even alert him that his behavior is inappropriate. The young man is arrested, but the tow truck driver is not.
This incident happened nearly a week ago, and yet there has still been no officials response that I am aware of, and silence definitely is not golden here. Somebody needs to tell us what happened.
You can see where I’m going with this. Because even conceding the fact that I was not physically present at the scene when the incident occurred, it’s hard to imagine what possible justification there could be for a trained police officer to only restrain one of two individuals involved in a physical altercation. It is even more difficult to comprehend how this same police officer – plus his fellow officers standing nearby – felt it was OK to restrain the one individual while allowing the other to physically stomp on him without fear of reprisal.
The only explanation that makes sense is that the tow truck driver stomped on the young man because he had no reason to fear any consequence for doing so, even in the presence of the police. And the police had no problem with what the tow truck driver did because, frankly, they weren’t bothered by it.
I am fully aware that an investigation is taking place, and I emphasize again that I – like so many others – can only go by what I saw. But after four decades of experience as a law enforcement officer sometimes you only need – or want – to see so much. Because I have been here before, and far too many times.