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When Little Rock, Arkansas police officers asked a legally blind man to come over and talk to them because he “fit the description” of a suspect, he complied with their request, but he was shocked when they slammed him to the ground.

Eric Wilson told Fox 16 that he had “just got off work” from the Lighthouse for the Blind and was walking home on Monday, June 1 along 65th St, because he had just missed his bus. He recalls how it was just before 4 p.m. when he heard someone say to him, “Hey, come over here and talk to me.”

Because he is legally blind and claims he can only see shadows, Wilson did not know who was calling out to him.

“I could have possibly been getting robbed. I didn’t know what was about to happen,” said Wilson.

The Little Rock Police Department officers claim they had just gotten a call about someone who looked like Wilson and was chasing or running away from someone. After seeing Wilson, they wanted to question him.

A dashboard cam video shows how the officers tell Wilson to put his hands behind his back, just before taking him to the ground.

 

In a police report, one of the officers said that Wilson “pulled violently causing me to lose grip.” He added that he was “afraid Wilson would strike myself or my partner with the handcuffs.” However, that is not what the dash cam revealed.

Police reports indicate that the officers also thought that something sticking out of Wilson’s pants pocket might be a gun, causing them to use extra caution with him, but it turned out that it was only a clock which reads time to blind people.

“When they tell him to ‘come over here,’ he walked towards them,” said Wilson’s lawyer, Reggie Koch, pointing out that this is exactly what the dash video shows. “When they tell him ‘take your hands out of your pockets,’ he takes his hands out of his pockets. What more do they want?”

“If anything, the officers should have been trying to help me,” Wilson states, questioning why they felt the need to throw him to the ground.

After the attack, Wilson went to the hospital to be treated for his injuries. He was diagnosed with a strained lumbar.

Wilson has since filed a formal complaint against the LRPD, but the department has declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation into the case.

Source: Your Black World