Traffic stop-turned-physical: Watch the body-worn camera footage
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — After video of parts of an interaction between a man, 22-year-old Marvin Taylor, and police was emailed to News10NBC and circulated on social media, the Rochester Police Department has released the body-worn camera footage of the confrontation. It happened on May 7.
What started as a traffic stop quickly turned into officers breaking a car window and having to tackle a man to the ground.
Police say officers saw the Taylor’s car on Morrill Street with an expired NYS inspection. As officers were running the car’s plates, they say they saw the car make a turn without using a turn signal.
Police say when officers tried to pull over the car, near the intersection of Remington and Dale streets, Taylor kept driving. The car stopped on Dale Street shortly after. Officers walked to the car asking the driver to roll down his back windows because of the tint. Police say the driver refused, and rolled up his driver’s side window.
Taylor says he didn’t roll down his window because police came up to him with their guns displayed, but not pointed at him. He says he was never told what he did wrong and he was afraid.
This is the point the cell phone video sent to the newsroom starts, with Taylor talking to police through his car window. Here’s that cell phone video:
“Sir, you need to get out of the car or I’m going to break your window,” one officer says as he knocks on the man’s driver side window.
“What is the problem,” the man responds. “What did I do though?”
“I’m going to break your window if you don’t get out of the car,” says the officer.
As the man starts to say, “Why are you going to break my window,” the officer slams his fist on the window, shattering it entirely.
As the man starts to ask why the officer broke his window, the officer continues to ask him to get out of his car, and appears to unlock the man’s door through the now-broken window.
“I’m not playing around, get out of the car,” the officer says, as another officer helps him open the car door.
“Yo, chill out, what is your deal? Bro, chill out,” the man yells, as officers are able to open his car door and begin to forcefully remove him from the car.
The cellphone video ends during an apparent scuffle between officers and Taylor.
In the officer’s body-worn camera footage, the confrontation continues as three officers try to restrain Taylor, and eventually Taylor ends up on the ground as officers put him in handcuffs.
“What did I do,” Taylor continues to yell.
Once Taylor is handcuffed, one officer picks him up off the ground and puts him in the back of the patrol car.
Chief David Smith is reviewing the situation.
“Our officers are tasked with doing an incredibly dangerous job on a daily basis. Situations like these, in which a motorist refuses a reasonable direction to lower the windows creates an unsafe situation for everyone involved,” says Chief Smith. “Cooperation from the motorist would easily have prevented this incident from escalating.”
News10NBC asked police if the stop was legal, and a spokesperson referred us to a court decision, Pennsylvania v. Mimms, involving a similar situation.
Taylor was charged with obstruction of governmental administration, failure to give appropriate turn signal, and operating a motor vehicle without a valid inspection certificate.
A few weeks later, Taylor held a rally with Save Rochester outside RPD’s headquarters. News10NBC was there and spoke with him.
“I have no warrants. I never been arrested. I have no record. I wasn’t being disrespectful to the officers,” said Taylor. “I simply wanted to know why I was being pulled over, and the officer never communicated that with me. I feel like my rights were ignored and I was treated like an animal.”
Taylor also told us he plans to sue, or at least wants to see some kind of accountability from the officers.
A Departmental Review is currently underway as a part of standard procedure for the police department.