A 20-year-old Virginia man became so enraged when he saw a sheriff’s deputy speeding by, he decided to chase it down, at times reaching speeds of 90 mph.
“It was early in the morning and I knew he was not on a call,” said the 20-year-old college student who ended up filming the entire incident on his camera and uploading the video to Youtube.
“I just wanted to confront him about it and tell him I had him on video.”
After several miles, the Accomack County Sheriff’s deputy turned down a side road with the man known only as Chura46 on Youtube following closely behind, honking his horn furiously in a profanity-laden tirade.
When the deputy finally pulled over, Chura46 stepped out of the car with his video camera and demanded to be arrested.
And the deputy did not even touch him.
And if that’s not mind-boggling enough, the deputy was even disciplined for speeding when his superiors saw the video after it had been uploaded to Youtube.
The deputy, Jason Campbell, was disciplined for violating department policy by speeding, Giddens said. Campbell was not answering a call at the time and did not have his lights flashing as is required when an officer is exceeding the speed limit in the line of duty.
During a phone interview with Photography is Not a Crime Wednesday morning, Chura46, who asked that his real name not be used, said he did not learn that the deputy had been disciplined until he saw the link on this blog. In fact, the reporter who wrote the story never bothered to contact him.
“You’re the first person who contacted me about an interview,” he said.
In the video, you can see how Chura46 blocked the deputy in to the point where the deputy even threatened to arrest him for “kidnapping”.
Officer Pot. Meet suspect Kettle.
But the deputy ended up getting back in his car with Chura46 continuing to mock him.
“I will never do that again,” he said. “That was just a one-time thing. I know I am lucky he did not arrest me but he did not because he knew he had done wrong.”
Chura46 also stressed that he is not a cop-hater nor does he normally talk as vulgar as he did in the video. In fact, he didn’t curse once during the 10-minute phone interview.
“Cops are necessary for our community and not all of them are bad,” he said. “I have friends who are trying to get on the force. I have friends who have older brothers who are cops. But some cops just take advantage of the power they have and I was trying to expose that.”
I doubt this would have ever worked in Miami or any other big city where the cops would just end up beating you, tazing you or just simply shooting you.
But I’m impressed Chura46. You got balls.
Perhaps you should change your name to Chutzpah46.
-30-
I am a multimedia journalist who has been fighting a lengthy legal battle after having photographed Miami police against their wishes in Feb. 2007. Please help the fight by donating to my Legal Defense Fund in the top left sidebar, which helps pay for the thousands of dollars I’ve acrued in debt since my arrest. To keep updated on the latest articles, join my networks at Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed.
