An Alabama police department is about to face legal ramifications as a Black pastor is gearing up to sue after being wrongfully arrested earlier in the year. The man believes his civil rights were violated by officers when they ignored the character references of others in the community and arrested him.
Rev. Michael Jennings, Pastor of Vision of Abundant Life Ministries in Sylacauga, has hired a lawyer in preparation to sue the Childersburg Police Department after officers arrested him for watering his neighbor’s front yard flower bush. The clergyman claims he was racially profiled and discriminated against because of the color of his skin, even being placed in handcuffs as other neighbors, white, told the police they erroneously called 911 on him. At the time of the call, they did not recognize the community stakeholder, Daily Mail reveals.
The officers took the man to the Talladega County jail and charged him with obstruction of government operation because he resisted the arrest.
On Sunday, May 22, a 20-minute video from the police’s bodycam captured the altercation.
On that day, after coming home from Sunday service, he completed a service his neighbor asked him to do: water the shrubbery around the house.
Unbeknownst to him, one of his white female neighbors reported a “suspicious” man and car on the property, and officers believed he fit the descriptor of being suspicious.
Officers arrived at the scene and approached the man.
“My neighbor goes out of town a lot, and they wanted me to watch their house and keep their flowers watered,” the good Samaritan said.
As Jennings told the officers what he was doing, bodycam footage captures one cop asking, “How do we know that’s the truth?”
“I had the water hose in my hand! I was watering the flowers,” the preacher snapped back.
Jennings refused to show the officers his identification. In Jennings’ life before the pastorate, he worked in law enforcement and felt the officers had no right to ask him for proof of his identity because he had not committed or was not presently committing a crime.
According to Alabama law, one is required to submit their identification if there is a “reasonable suspicion that the individual is involved in criminal activity.”
Recent Comments