The Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy was a hero in his own movie, the way he swaggered up to a young black man and demanded his identification, even though the man was under no legal obligation to provide it.
“Listen, I’m not here to play around,” said the deputy wearing a Thin Blue Line flag on his uniform with another blue line covering his badge number.
“You can record me all you want, that’s fine, I’m not here to play around.”
When the man says he has no identification and attempts to walk away, the deputy grabs him and horse collars him, shoving him backwards hard.
That led to another black man, possibly the victim’s brother, to stand between the two and pull the man away. The two black men make their way inside a home with the deputy following.
The young man with the camera then walks up to the other deputy, who was much more laidback than his partner.
“Is this not harassment?” the person recording asks the second cop.
“I apologized, did I not, don’t yell at me,” the deputy says.
“This is harassment, he can’t ask me for identification, I don’t have to show him identification,” the person with the camera says.
“Ok, you don’t have to explain it to me, I understand, buddy,” the cop says.
Meanwhile, his partner was turning on all the machismo courage he could muster as he tried to justify his actions against the young man, claiming the man had walked up behind him, making him fear for his life when the video shows the man was walking away from him.
And unlike the first cop, he truly believed he had the authority to demand people’s identification without having a reasonable suspicion they were involved in a crime.
He also believed he did not have to provide his name and badge number but that is generally a departmental policy.
“I’m not giving you shit,” he says when asked.
Below is the unedited original video and above is the shortened, edited video.
https://www.facebook.com/watchlockup/videos/344909662838546/