City officials in Texas have released video footage of a 2019 arrest in which New Braunfels police officers tased and handcuffed a Black man after pulling him over for a “dirty license plate.” The city’s mayor has called the actions of former officer Kaleb Meyer — who resigned after the incident — “unacceptable.”
“We want to make it abundantly clear that the actions of the officer in the video are not acceptable to the city of New Braunfels and not representative of the men and women of the police department of the city of New Braunfels,” Mayor Rusty Brockman said on Monday (Nov. 16).
The clip shows Meyer pulling over Clarence Crawford, the driver of the vehicle. Crawford keeps his hands on the steering wheel, as instructed by Meyer, while the officer aims his gun at him.
“Please don’t shoot me, officer!” Crawford yells in the footage. Meyer then orders the man to take off his seatbelt.
“You told me to put my hands on the wheel!” Crawford replies.
“Take the seatbelt off, or I’m going to cut it off you,” Meyer threatens.
After his seatbelt is off, Meyer pulls Crawford’s arm and orders him to lie face-down on the ground. The man repeatedly asks Meyer why he was pulled over, which the cop claims was for his “dirty license plate.” Meyer fired a taser at Crawford twice while he was laying face-down on the pavement, and then put him in handcuffs.
Another officer, Sylvia Martinez, eventually arrived to deescalate the situation and help Crawford sit up. Crawford was initially arrested on charges of fleeing an officer and interfering with public duties, but the charges were later dropped. Meyer resigned after the incident, along with former Police Chief Tom Wibert.
After the arrest, Crawford filed a complaint against the department. See the disturbing footage from the incident here.