Milwaukee police released footage captured by a body camera that shows Bucks rookie and Maywood native Sterling Brown, 23, being arrested and police using a Taser on him after a parking violation.
The incident occured at 2 a.m. on Jan. 26. Officers doing a routine check at a Walgreens near the BMO Harris Bradley Center — the Bucks’ home arena — found a car parked across two handicapped spaces.
The 30-minute video begins with an officer asking Brown for his driver’s license. Seconds later, the officer gruffly tells Brown to “back up.”
Four minutes and 20 seconds into the video, two additional police cars pull into the parking lot. Brown is standing outside his vehicle, hands in his pockets, speaking with the officers.
After eight minutes, an officer yells, “Take your hands out of your pockets, now.” Brown, who was not resisting, appears to say, “Leave me alone. I’ve got stuff in my hands,” before he is tackled to the ground by at least six officers.
“Taser, Taser, Taser,” one officer yells.
An officer later is heard saying to another, “He was being an ass and trying to hide something.”
Brown, a Proviso East alumnus who was 22 at the time, was arrested, but no criminal charges were filed. He released a statement on Twitter after the video was released.
“My experience in January with the Milwaukee Police Department was wrong and shouldn’t happen to anybody,” Brown wrote. “What should have been a simple parking ticket turned into an attempt at police intimidation, followed by the unlawful use of physical force, including being handcuffed and tased, and then unlawfully booked.”
He went on to say he will take legal action against the Milwaukee Police Department. Brown has retained lawyer Mark Thomsen to file a federal civil rights lawsuit.
“I am sorry this incident escalated to this level,” Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales said in a statement.
Morales did not take questions from the media.
