MARION SC PD PULLED OVER THE WRONG ONE TODAY! #police #cops #government #camera

No directives, no directives, no directives, no directives, no directives of any sort. You got me wrong, ******* directives. Did you just run from me? It's okay? All right, put your hands behind your back. The BWC video shows a ponytail police officer take the wrong man into custody. After mistaking his license plate for that of a suspect, now he's suing the city for civil assault. He was leaving a Burger King when he was mistaken for someone who was involved in a high-speed chase by the Marion Police Department and was pulled over and subsequently ordered out of his vehicle onto the ground at gunpoint by an officer with the police department and handcuffed still at gunpoint, obviously giving him a really traumatic experience. X-ray uniform. This ain't even him, but they got almost the identical tag. Look just like this. This horrendous mistake happened on November 20th, 2022 in Marion, South Carolina. David Wiggins driver then he was on his way home Burger King where he was pulled over by You got anybody in there with you? Anybody with you? Take your right hand up in the door. On the ground, on the ground. The body worn camera shows Higgins continuing to say he didn't run from the police. Did you just run from me? Sir, okay. All right, put your hands behind your back. Oh, did you hear that? Seems like they'd figure that out before they pulled you over. But nah, we're talking about Marion Police right now. After they realized the wrong person was pulled over, the responding officer apologized to Higgins as he was laying in the middle of the street and torture cuss. Did I scare you? I'm sorry. You got almost the same tag, same car. He must have passed you going through and you turned off the camera. We had everybody coming through. Yeah. You good? You have a good one, okay? I'm sorry about that. But attorney Penn Darvis says that apology isn't enough at the end of the day. Enough. At the end of the day, Mr. Higgins, for three minutes, for 180 seconds, he was in handcuffs on the ground, face down, with a gun drawn to him, with multiple officers around him. He didn't know, and he didn't do anything wrong. He was flabbergasted by the fact that he was stopped to begin with. Penn Darvis says that the traffic stop traumatized Higgins. He questioned the officers as to why he was being stopped. And they insinuated, until backup got there, they insinuated that he was running from them. He's like, I didn't run. I didn't do anything. What did I do? And so being on the ground for that long, he didn't know if the next breath that he took was going to be his last. And so it really, really traumatized him. He's been in therapy since then, dealing with the effects that this has had on his psyche and his overall being and his interaction with law enforcement, to be frank. He says they waited months to file a suit against the city to make sure his team collected all the information. It happened in November. We took this long to file the lawsuit because we wanted to do our due diligence, something that was not afforded to Mr. Higgins when the officers stopped him prematurely. And so we wanted to investigate and get the video, talk with people in the community, kind of get a sense of what the experiences have been like for our motorists and people similarly situated. Now they're going with the civil assault, battery negligent, then false imprisonment. If the cop didn't take charges on us, why can't we change them on him? Well, the reason why we filed the lawsuit, because there has to be some measure of accountability. While there was an apology, Mr. Higgins and his family did have a meeting with the police chief and they did acknowledge that he should not have been stopped and what happened to him was wrong. But they stopped short of calling for an investigation into it. We would have liked them to turn the matter over to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which is the state agency that investigates police departments for misconduct. And they did not, right? They opted not to. And we believe that a more thorough investigation was necessary here. You would like SLED's investigation results either. Pandora says he hoped lawsuit can shed some light on the incident and prevent future situations like this. You know, the part of it is one of bringing accountability to that to make sure that we, you know, if there's some things that are uncovered through the litigation part of this, then that can be brought to the public. But also to ensure that the police department ensures that if they improve their training to a point where they can recognize and identify people who are actual suspects and not stop and really cause harm to those innocent motorists who are just trying to get home like Mr. Higgins. And so there has to be some measure of accountability. And the lawsuit is the first step in trying to bring that about for Mr. Higgins, his family, and frankly, the community of Marion. If you're going to stop a motorist, if you're going to take the step in stopping someone, pulling them over and drawing a gun to order them out of their vehicle, you've got to be sure that you have the right person. And so there's a due diligence that's on the part of the Marion Police Department to make sure that that officer is armed with correct information, that she's using the information she's given to properly identify suspects that are in the actual commission of a crime or suspected to be committing a crime, not an innocent motorist who's just trying to get some food and get home like Mr. Higgins was on November 20th of 2022. Darvish says this could have ended a lot worse for Higgins, who knows, against Lowdy to go to Burger King. If we don't do something now, then who knows if the next suspect is even able to leave the scene. Thankfully, Mr. Higgins was very compliant. He stopped when he was blue lighted. He got out of the vehicle when he was ordered to. He did everything that we asked citizens to do when they're stopped by the police to comply. He did all of that. But what if he had made what was determined to be a false move? What if the officer thought that he was armed or if he was a threat and there were shots fired, then all of a sudden we're talking about a much larger situation than we are now. And all because of a mistaken identity. At the end of the day, there are certain mistakes that cannot happen because the consequences can be deadly. And in this situation, it was inexcusable. It should not have happened. And we're bringing the lawsuit to bring about justice and accountability for Mr. Higgins. All right, let me know what you think about that. See what you can learn if you grab the Law and Crime Network. I didn't know it was against the law to go to Burger King. I'll put their link in the description to you guys on the next one. I love y'all back.