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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