Black man, brutally arrested outside his home, sues Michigan police
A Michigan man who was forcefully arrested for turning without a signal as he was driving up to his home is now suing the police officers.
A Michigan man who was forcefully arrested for turning without a signal as he was driving up to his home is now suing the police officers.
Wednesday, Detroit’s WDIV reported Cody Meredith was only 18 when officers followed him as he was arriving home early one morning in May 2016. Now, his case has turned into a federal lawsuit.
The officers claimed the young man braked too hard as he was trying to avoid running a stop sign and then turned without signaling into his own driveway. It’s at this point that the officers turned on their sirens and approached him.
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“I stopped at a stop sign, and they followed me home from there,” Meredith said. “Somebody I expected to protect me basically didn’t protect me.”
“Get back in the car, man,” one of the officers can be heard yelling in the dash camera footage. When Meredith didn’t re-enter his vehicle they ran towards him.
“Get up off of me!” he yelled as two officers grabbed him.
What took place next is not visible on the dashcam footage, but the audio recording began the moment officers turned the lights on and caught everything.
“Not using your turn signal is not a crime,” points out Amir Makled, Meredith’s attorney.
“I was tased twice,” Meredith said of the video which shows the fight that ensued.
“At that point, in my mind, I’m thinking, ‘Why did I get stopped?’ Why did I get followed home when they could have pulled me over before I got to my home?”
“Look at that: one, two, three right to his face,” Makled said while reviewing the footage with a WDIV reporter. “They still haven’t told him what he did wrong.”
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The police claim the then-18-year-old was aggressively handled because he resisted officers. But Meredith maintains he didn’t even get a chance to resist. “There was no opportunity to say anything,” he said. “As soon as they got close to me they threw me to the ground and started beating me.”
The excessive force allegedly only escalated when additional officers arrived.
“I was being choked,” Meredith recounts. “I was being beaten. I was in handcuffs being kicked in my face. There was a lot of stuff going on.”
The altercation happened right in front of Meredith’s mother’s house, and in the audio he can be heard screaming for her during the arrest.
“They’re police officers,” Meredith said. “I’m a Black male. That answers the question. They’re going to do and say what they can to protect themselves.”
The Taylor police chief declined to make a statement when the local news station requested a comment, but attorney Cyril Hall believes the case points to bigger problems with the police department.
“I don’t believe it’s isolated because we’ve had one of the officers listed in the complaint,” Hall said. “He’s been sued on other occasions (for excessive force).”
Initially police charged Meredith with drug possession and two counts of assaulting a police officer. However, since Meredith had a medical marijuana card the drug possession charge was dropped. He is seeking more than $70,000 in damages from the lawsuit.
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