The July arrest of a Guatemalan man that the Arkansas State Police and Gov. Sarah Sanders used to vilify immigrants has opened up a different can of worms, with the trooper now coming under scrutiny after dashcam video revealed her unorthodox approach that likely put her and everyone else involved in unnecessary danger.
The encounter began when Trooper Alexandria Duncan pulled over a speeding car on Interstate 49 in Rogers on July 27. Duncan ended up shooting the driver, Angel Zapet-Alvarado, grazing him in the temple. Benton County Prosecutor Joshua Robinson determined this week that the trooper’s use of potentially deadly force was justified under Arkansas law.
But some are calling into question Duncan’s version of events. While Duncan said she had little choice but to escalate to violence when Zapet-Alvarado tried to put the car into drive to make an escape, the video released this week suggests a different narrative is possible.
Duncan pulled Zapet-Alvarado over on the shoulder of I-49 at 7:43 p.m. on July 27, after she clocked him driving 114 miles an hour.
Dashcam footage shows that after pulling Zapet-Alvarado over, Duncan approached his car and opened his door as he was rolling his window down. The trooper can be seen reaching into the car. As a struggle escalates, the trooper threw Zapet-Alvarado’s keys into the grass as she dragged him out of the car. Zapet-Alvarado can be heard screaming, “Why? Why? Why?” during the 4-minute-long roadside scuffle, with Duncan Tasering him multiple times. At one point, Zapet-Alvarado wrested the Taser from the officer and threw it into traffic.
Shortly after, a passerby jumps into the fray, retrieving the Taser from the roadway and handing it back to the officer. The trio rolls around on the shoulder a bit longer until Duncan tells the passerby to move out of the way before shooting Zapet-Alvarado in the temple. The wrestling then stops as other officers arrive on the scene and put Zapet-Alvarado in handcuffs.
Zapet-Alvarado has been in the Benton County Detention Center ever since, charged with second degree battery and resisting arrest, in addition to reckless driving, speeding and drunk driving. His blood alcohol level was .16. He has a court date in Benton Monday morning.
An interview with Trooper Duncan and a summary of the Arkansas State Police investigation into the arrest paint a picture of a combative subject threatening to flee the scene. From the state police investigation summary:
Trp. Duncan said when she approached the vehicle and opened the car door, Zapet-Alvarado tried to put the vehicle in drive. Trp. Duncan said she was able to get the vehicle into park and take the keys. Trp. Duncan said she was afraid she might get drug down the road if she did not get the vehicle secured. Trp. Duncan said she gave Zapet-Alvarado commands to exit the vehicle and Zapet-Alvarado would not comply. Trp. Duncan said she deployed her taser in an attempt to get Zapet-Alvarado to comply with her, but he would not, Zapet-Alvarado wrestled the taser away from Trp. Duncan.
Zapet-Alvarado’s attorney, Aaron Cash, had a different interpretation.
The trooper’s decision to open the door and immediately get physical created a dangerous situation, he said. Cash, a former public defender, said the trooper went way outside the usual protocol of asking for the driver’s license, insurance and registration, or calling for back-up or a translator.
“If you go up there and escalate things, things get escalated,” Cash said.
Zapet-Alvarado is relatively new to the country, and still struggles to understand English. But he is married to a U.S. citizen and is working toward becoming a legal permanent resident, Cash said.
A transcript from a state police interview conducted at a hospital the night of the arrest and that has been translated from Spanish to English indicates the language barrier caused ongoing confusion throughout the ordeal. Zapet-Alvarado said he believed the trooper was attacking him.
“Well I honestly, I said that I’m going to fight for my life and I have to go with my wife, she’s waiting and she has a son and she is waiting with my son and I have to get out if they’re attacking me, I have to defend myself,” he told police in an interview at a hospital on the day of the arrest. You can read the full transcript here. In it, Zapet-Alvarado admits hitting the trooper, and said he wanted to do what he could to get home to his new baby, who he said was 20 days old.
Both Cash and fellow attorney Tom Mars, who served as head of the Arkansas State Police under Gov. Mike Huckabee, say it’s important to note that the tail lights of Zapet-Alvarado’s car never flicker after he pulls over, casting doubt on the trooper’s explanation that she had to subdue the driver before he fled or dragged her down the highway.
“A review of the dashcam video and a subsequent videotaped test of the car shows beyond any reasonable doubt that the driver never took the vehicle out of park,” Mars said. “If he had done so, a flicker of the white reverse lights would appear in the video just like the white flicker of lights that can be seen in the video when the driver pulled over with the trooper behind him and put the vehicle in park. To confirm this, a video has been taken testing whether the reverse light in the car shown in the dashcam video comes on whenever the gearshift is moved from ‘P’ to ‘D.’ The video demonstrates that the reverse light illuminated briefly every time the gearshift in the car came out of park and whenever the gearshift went back to park.”
And he has more objections to what he said look to be breaches of protocol that ramped up the danger for all involved.
“From my perspective, the video evidence raises legitimate questions about why a trooper would tase and drag an intoxicated, unarmed, non-English-speaking motorist out of a car and start and altercation with them that eventually caused the trooper to conclude she had to shoot the motorist in the head to defend herself.”
Arkansas State Police put out a press release about Zapet-Alvarado’s arrest in July that raised eyebrows for noting, in the subject line and lead, that he’s Guatemalan. A suspect’s nationality and immigration status is not usually mentioned in such releases, and the governor doesn’t typically make public statements on DUI arrests. In July, though, Gov. Sarah Sanders described the incident as a violent assault on a state trooper by “a criminal illegal immigrant.” And of course, she blamed Democrats.
“Even though they deny it and the media covers it up, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have created the worst border crisis in history and they must be held responsible,” she said in the state police news release.
Mars said Friday that it’s clear politics come into play in this case.
“If you stand around the intersection of politics and policing long enough, you’re guaranteed to see something horrific that higher-ups will try to spin for political gain. This indefensible use of force is a perfect example,” he said.
Source
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)