A North Carolina Officer is caught on police video cam threatening the life of a suspect. Someone tasked with protecting everyone, including suspects. The officer is seen in a video holding a gun to the head of a suspect.
The suspect’s name is James Yarborough and is unarmed. A second police officer is seen offering to use a stun gun on Yarborough instead. “Light him up,” he says. And that’s police for you. Who will tame this excessive police behavior? Perhaps write-ups such as this will. Read on to get more details!
Thanks to body cameras worn by the cops, this video was procured by Charlotte’s WBTV News and has everybody disgusted. What if he pressed the trigger by mistake? What if the suspect resisted, even just a little bit. Isn’t better to subdue the suspect and take him to the police station for questioning? This March 26, 2016 incident has strengthened the need to have every officer wear the body camera. Accountability from those given authority to hold guns must be there!
The scared Yarborough later confessed to the TV crew that he had resigned to fate. He knew it was over, and he was helpless to do anything else.
Fortunately for the police officers, there is another footage that shows Yarborough resisting arrest. In this clip, he has several officers on top of him trying to cuff him.
After going through the footage, the officer pointing the gun at the suspects head is identified as Jon Dunham. The police spokesman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg argues that the suspect had run away from the officers after a vehicle in which he was a passenger was stopped on a police check.
The spokesman continues, “Our officers pursued him for more than 3 minutes on foot and when they caught up with him, he resisted arrest and compliance to commands by the officers.” This does not however excuse the clear agitation by Officer Dunham. Policemen are trained to handle situations such as this better. Besides, Yarborough was unarmed and posed no direct danger to the officers.
Upon search of the vehicle Yarborough was riding as a passenger, a gun was discovered. Now he had been charged before for possession of a firearm, resisting arrest and a felon but the charges were dismissed for lack of evidence. Perhaps this is why Yarborough was running from the police.
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“True, I was wrong to run.” Yarborough admitted to WBTV News. But as it was later established, this did not amount to any violation of the police’s polices and directives.
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Officer Dunham was later to be committed to training in verbal communication, but he resigned from the service before the investigation report was released. Apparently, he got support from unexpected quarters. The North Carolina Senator, Joel Ford, said he did not agree with the investigation results and use of force to arrest Yarborough was called for but went on to clarify, “threatening his life was not a good idea.”
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Officer Dunham was later employed by the Town of Davidson Police Department and despite of having the knowledge of the video, the department chief has remained mum on the issue. Mr. Yarborough is currently looking for a lawyer to sue the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police for the excesses displayed by their officer.