Darren Wilson Video Shows Officer Arresting Man For Filming

An officer who is said to be Darren Wilson is on video, apparently arresting a man who was recording him during a 2013 incident. Though police are denying that the officer in the video is Wilson, arrest records corroborate the claims of Mike Arman, who shot the video last year, and uploaded it on Saturday.

The video is below, but here are some key details: Arman initially uploaded the video anonymously, but confirmed his identity to the Guardian on Saturday. A police report confirms that Wilson was at Arman’s home to issue a court summons for vehicles that were “unlicensed and appeared to be inoperable.”

The same report states, “Arman then stated that I must state my name to him. I advised Arman that I would not comply with his demand and to remove the camera from my face in order to complete the process of the derelict vehicles. Arman refused to abide by any of my requests, and only replied by stating that he needed my name.”

The report goes on to describe Wilson asking Arman to step off the porch and place his hands behind his back, indicating that the officer was forced to manually grab Arman’s hands and cuff them when Arman refused. None of the above can be seen in the video. Instead, the video shows the officer, apparently Wilson, threatening to “lock your a** up” if Arman doesn’t stop “taking pictures.”

Though there has been contention about the matter, it is generally upheld that citizens have the right to make video recordings of police on duty. According to the ACLU, recording in public spaces is generally protected, and on private property, the property owner sets the rules for what may be recorded.

As far as video, the ACLU notes that officers have faced felony charges for deleting photo and video evidence from a citizen’s digital device.

Arman says that Darren Wilson lied in the police report. The video is short enough to leave some doubt — perhaps some of the events Wilson describes happened before the clip begins — but at best, it seems that the video does not reflect events in the order stated.

The obvious implication is that if Darren Wilson did, indeed, falsely represent the events of an arrest in one situation, then there’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t do so in another — namely, in the case of the shooting of Michael Brown, as has been alleged.

Arman says this Darren Wilson video is only the first, and that he’ll be uploading more videos that he says show evidence of police corruption.