“He was terrified that if he was going to move his hands below where Officer Gutierrez could have seen them to undo that seatbelt, they would have murdered him,” said Jonathan Arthur, attorney for 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario, who is Black and Latino.
The Windsor, Virginia, officers pointed guns at, pepper sprayed and pushed Nazario to the ground during the traffic stop last December. During the stop, the police officers believed the Army officer was missing a license plate on his new SUV.
Nazario has filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million in compensatory damages, claiming the two officers violated his rights guaranteed under the First and Fourth Amendments. The suit, filed in US District Court and first reported by the Virginian-Pilot, claims the officers used excessive force during the stop in December.
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