City officials in Rohnert Park, California say they are investigating a video that appears to show a police officer drawing his gun during a confrontation with a man who was filming him.
Rohnert Park resident Don McComas filmed the incident on July 27, according to ABC 7, and posted the video to Facebook and YouTube several days later, where the footage went viral.
In the video, McComas notes that he is standing in his front yard, and begins training his cell phone camera on a police car that pulls up nearby. The officer in the car takes out his own cell phone and points it at McComas, apparently to take a photo.
The officer then gets out of the car and tells McComas to take his hand out of his pocket. After McComas replies, “No, sir, I’ve done nothing. I’ve done absolutely nothing,” the officer draws his gun. He doesn’t point it at McComas, but continues to hold it in his hand throughout the incident.
In the video, which can be viewed above, McComas asks the officer why he got out of his vehicle, and the officer replies, “You’re taking a picture of me, I’m taking a picture of you.” He then asks the officer why he'd approached and stopped in front of his house earlier, and the officer says that there was no reason.
The argument escalates until McComas accuses the department of being “corrupt,” leading the officer to ask, “Are you some kind of a constitutionalist crazy guy or something like that?”
McComas replies that he is filming the interaction to “protect myself from you.” About four minutes into the argument, the officer gets into his vehicle and leaves. McComas was not arrested or detained.
The city will be conducting an “internal review” of the incident, Rohnert Park Mayor Amy Ahanotu and City Manager Darrin Jenkins wrote in a joint statement on Facebook Tuesday. The identity of the police officer in the video has not been released.
Criminal defense attorney Paul Lozada told The Press Democrat the officer was within his rights to ask McComas to take his hand out of his pocket -- but drawing his gun is another story.
“[An officer] needs to have a reasonable suspicion that the person he’s talking to is engaged in some sort of criminal activity,” Lozada said. “If that man is not, this officer may have committed a misdemeanor brandishing offense.”
More information about the incident is necessary to determine if the officer did anything wrong, he added.
Assistant city manager Don Schwartz told The Press Democrat that officials weren’t yet able to release more information about the case, but noted that the officer may have been driving slowly in the neighborhood because of parking issues on McComas’ street.
The Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety announced Thursday that they would cancel an officer meet-and-greet called “Coffee with a Cop” over concern that citizens would use the event to “create a disturbance.”
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