A viral video depicting a Wisconsin police officer throwing a plastic bag of what appears to be drugs in the backseat of a Black person’s car surfaced online Saturday (July 24). The 14-second clip, however, only reveals a portion of the events that occurred.
Within the video, a Black man asks a white Village of Caledonia police officer “what’s that? What did you just throw in here? I got you on camera bro,” the passenger says. The officer responds, “I got you on camera, we’re all good.”
Then, the camera pans to the backseat revealing the plastic bag the officer tossed in the car. The passenger asks again, “Hey bro, you just threw that in here.” A local rapper named Trenchkid Savoo is claiming to be the man in the video. He shared more insight into the situation via Twitter.
“First time ever seeing a cop try to throw sum on me just to get reason to search the car. He ain’t even know I was recording. You can tell he was nervous,” he tweeted. In a subsequent clip, Trenchkid Savoo says he is okay and he did not go to jail. He says he plans to take legal action and has already contacted some lawyers.
Village of Caledonia Police Department responded with a statement via Facebook. The department said they plan to conduct a “comprehensive internal review of the incident.” “All officers assigned to patrol duties are equipped with body worn cameras, and preliminary information indicates the officers on scene of this incident all had their body worn cameras activated,” the statement said. “In addition, marked Caledonia police patrol vehicles are equipped with dashboard mounted cameras. As part of the internal investigation, we will be reviewing those videos. We will also need to gather information from all officers who were present.”
“Please keep in mind that the cell phone video that is circulating depicts only a small portion of the entire encounter; whereas, all available video may provide more context,” the department added.
After reviewing the body cam footage, Village of Caledonia Police Chief Christopher Botsch responded to the viral incident in a Facebook post. According to Botsch, the vehicle was stopped because the driver was going 63 mph in a 45 mph zone. Police removed the driver and rear passengers before the video began. They also searched one of the rear passengers and found an empty corner tear of a plastic baggie. The same empty corner tear from the video Botsch says did not contain an illegal substance. “This type of packaging is a common method for holding illegal drugs,” he wrote.
“The empty corner tear was turned over by the searching officer to another officer who was on scene. That officer turned it over to the officer who is seen on video. Since there were no drugs in the corner tear, the officers discarded the empty packaging material in the vehicle. This is what was observed in the video.” The police department plans to continue its investigation into the matter. All videos related to the traffic stop will be released in the near future.
Check out the viral clip and the officer body cam video below: