Adrian Burrell walked out of his home in Vallejo, Calif. last Tuesday afternoon and saw a police officer pointing a gun at his cousin in the driveway.
Burrell, seeing his cousin sitting on his motorcycle with his hands up, reached for his cellphone to record what was happening.
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“I had both hands up kind of like this and said, ‘He can’t hear you. He has his helmet on,'” Burrell said to San Francisco ABC affiliate KGO . “Kind of like chill out. He (officer) tells me to go back inside of my house.”
Burrell did not go back inside his home and he was quickly rushed by the officer, David McLaughlin.
“He handcuffed me and threw me into this wall here,” Burrell said. “Swung my body into that pole there, where I knocked my head. He took me to the car and detained me and told me I was going to jail.”
After a few minutes, Burrell was let go by McLaughlin when he found out that the man was a veteran. Burrell was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 2012.
“I felt violated,” Burrell told the television news outlet. “I felt like my humanity was taken away from me.”
The department, which is located about 30 minutes north of Oakland, has launched an internal investigation. Burrell has retained a civil rights attorney and the department said in a statement that the incident was also caught the Jan. 31 incident on the officer’s body camera.
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“The Vallejo Police Department became aware of a video circulating on social media involving a traffic stop by a Vallejo Police Officer,” the statement said. “After viewing the video, Chief Andrew Bidou ordered an internal affairs investigation of the incident even though we have not received any citizen’s complaint regarding the traffic stop.
“The entire incident was captured on the Police Officer’s body camera and will be reviewed in connection with this investigation,” it continued. “Upon completion of the investigation, Chief Bidou will thoroughly review all of the facts and make the final determination.”