Slain Georgia jogger Ahmaud Arbery was rapping in his car alone when officers harassed him for being in a park known for drug activity in 2017.
Arbery refused to allow an officer to search his car and explained he had the day off from work and was relaxing by rapping after working for six days.
The incident, previously described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, escalated when Arbery began to question why the officer, Michael Kanago, was hassling him. Kanago claimed he began to feel threatened by Arbery, later writing in his report that “veins were popping from [Arbery’s] chest, which made me feel that he was becoming enraged and may turn physically violent towards me”. Kanago requested help from a second officer.
The second officer attempted to tase Arbery while on the ground, but the report says his taser malfunctioned.
Arbery was allowed to leave but not to drive his car because his driver’s license was suspended.
In a joint statement to the Guardian, lawyers working for the Arbery family described the video as a clear depiction of “a situation where Ahmaud was harassed by Glynn county police officers”.
In 2013 Arbery faced probation for carrying a gun to high school, and in 2018 was charged with shoplifting and violating his probation.
The Glynn county police department had been facing corruption scandals of their own.
In March, the police chief and three high ranking officers were indicted on perjury charges, ignoring evidence that a fellow officer was consorting with a known drug dealer.
In 2019 a narcotics department was disbanded after an investigator was found to have had sex with two confidential informants. Evidence of the misconduct was found in 2017, but was not investigated.
In 2018 the department lost certifications with two law enforcement bodies, the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police and the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement.
Check out more details of this story at The Guardian.
