A man who was arrested last year by Ferguson police
officer Darren Wilson uploaded video of the incident to YouTube on
Friday. Per the incident report filed at the time, Wilson arrested
Ferguson resident Mike Arman for failing to comply with orders. Wilson,
who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in August, approached
Arman’s residence to deliver a summons for derelict vehicles on the
property. Arman began to shoot video of the encounter with his
cellphone.
Apparently, Wilson did not like that Arman was using
his phone to record the encounter or take photos of him. In the video,
you can hear Wilson telling Arman, “If you wanna take a picture of me
one more time, I’m going to lock your ass up.” Arman responded that he
wasn’t taking a picture of Wilson but was instead recording the officer.
At that point, Wilson walks to Arman and the video cuts off. Arman told The Guardian that is when Wilson arrested him.
Below is the video clip from Arman:
In his interview with The Guardian, Arman
points out that charges were dropped after he informed his lawyer that
he had a video recording of the incident. An additional charge of
keeping pit bulls outside of city regulations was also dropped after
Arman confirmed that that dog was actually a bulldog and not a pit
bull. The Guardian did confirm that Arman had been arrested in the past for resisting arrest.
When the magazine called the Ferguson police
department to confirm whether or not Wilson was the officer seen on the
tape, the department responded by saying they did not believe it was
video of Wilson. However, a police incident report
shows that Wilson was the officer who arrested Arman on October 28th,
2013. Per the incident report, Wilson claims he only arrested Arman only
after Arman refused to cooperate and demanded that Wilson give his name
for a video recording. Wilson also claims in the report that he told
Arman that an audio recording would be acceptable.
However, the video clip and Arman’s statements to The Guardian
tell a different story altogether. Arman claims that Wilson only told
him an audio recording would have been sufficient only after he arrested
him. Also, while the report that Wilson filed states that Arman had the
camera directly in Wilson’s face, the clip shows that Wilson was on the
other side of the front yard when Arman recorded the video.
The main takeaway from this video and incident
report is that it shows Wilson may have a tendency to exaggerate or just
outright lie in order to justify his actions. In this instance, we can
see he made several false claims surrounding the arrest of Arman. It
appears that Wilson was upset with Arman recording or taking pictures of
him while there to serve a summons and he overreacted. To make it seem
he didn’t act out of emotion, he made demonstrably false statements in
his report and seemingly added an additional charge regarding pit bulls
to potentially give the arrest more credibility.
Arman’s story is vitally important when taken in the
context of Wilson’s encounter with Brown. If Wilson is not indicted for
Brown’s murder, it is likely due to the fact that the grand jury
members believed his story surrounding the events that led to him
shooting Brown at least six times. However, the incident with Arman
shows that Wilson has no qualms with making something up to cover up his
own mistakes or overreactions.
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