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Rainbow City, Alabama – After viral claims of police brutality were posted to Facebook, the Rainbow City Police Department released body camera footage which exposed all of the claims to be a lie.

The post read: “Rainbow city beat him half to death and pushed him off a bridge,” posting images of the injured man. “The people who are supposed to serve and protect. He’s trying to talk but his whole front row of teeth are knocked out, he had to have his tongue sewed back together and his femur bone is broken he has to have surgery on it.”

The incident which prompted the post started on Thursday night at around 8:40 PM. An officer stopped a female driver for not having a working taillight, according to Birmingham News

The male passenger in the vehicle appeared nervous and when asked, he gave the officer his name and date of birth. The man stated that he didn’t have an Alabama driver’s license. The officer conducted a record check on the given name and got no response.

When the officer returned to question the man about his name, the man produced an Alabama driver’s license, but the picture didn’t appear to match. He gave the officer an excuse, saying he lost a lot of weight in jail.

Finally, the officer separated the driver from the passenger and asked her about the man’s identity. She provided his real name, and a records check showed that he had multiple felony and misdemeanor warrants.

The suspect was seriously injured in the fall, but he still took off his pants to prepare to jump in the river, and then kept running. The officer finally took him down with a Taser and he was taken into custody.

Rainbow City Police Chief Jonathon Horton told the newspaper he learned about the Facebook post-Friday morning. In response, Chief Horton released a 30-minute video which shows the man jumping off the bridge on his own during the traffic stop.

Birmingham News reported that the post and photos were taken down Saturday.

The man initially gave the police officers a fake name, . The man then gave police an Alabama driver’s license, but it didn’t look like him. The female passenger finally told police the man’s real name, the newspaper reported. And when police searched that name, they found two felony warrants as well as misdemeanor traffic warrants, the Birmingham News reported.

“He jumped off the bridge,” Chief Horton told the newspaper. “There wasn’t any physical contact (between him and the officer) other than him being Tased.”

The suspect will be charged upon his release from the hospital.

 

 

Source: BlueLivesMatter