Philadelphia police officer charged for deleting victim’s arrest video
(The AEGIS Alliance) – A cop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that grabbed and pulled a guy out of his vehicle at a gas station is facing charges following the officer apparently accessing the victim’s smartphone and then erasing a video clip recording of the arrest.
Officer Tyree Burnett is facing charges of tampering with evidence, obstructing justice as well as official oppression originating from the traffic stop that took place on March 23, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, revealed on Wednesday.
In the video of bodycam footage that CBS3 acquired, Burnett is observed moving toward Jacob Giddings at the gasoline station at about 10:20 p.m. Giddings’ lawyer stated that Burnett said to Giddings that he needed to exit the vehicle, yet wouldn’t explain why he needed to.
Giddings declined to exit his car, whereupon Burnett started to yank him out of the automobile as Giddings captured video of what happened on his smartphone.
“There’s tampering with evidence here and it kills,” an attorney for Giddings, Lennon Edwards, informed CBS3 in June. “It harms. It harms the community.”
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The bodycam video reveals Burnett grabbing Giddings’ smartphone and then appear to erase the recording.
Burnett, who has been on the force for four years, was suspended for one month, and also Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw stated she intends to “dismiss” him by the time his suspension ends.
Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
