Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said Sunday that he is directing Virginia State Police to investigate a traffic stop during which two police officers held an Army second lieutenant at gunpoint in the southeastern part of the state.
Northam, a Democrat, said the incident - in which body-camera footage shows police pepper-spraying, striking and handcuffing Caron Nazario - “is disturbing and angered me.” Nazario, 27, who is Black and Latino, filed a lawsuit this month against Windsor Officers Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker that alleges excessive force due to racial profiling.
“Our Commonwealth has done important work on police reform, but we must keep working to ensure Virginians are safe during interactions with police, the enforcement of laws is fair and equitable, and people are held accountable,” Northam said in a statement.
Neither Windsor Police Chief Rodney Riddle nor Mayor Glyn Willis immediately responded to requests for comment Sunday. Windsor is a town of about 2,600 residents about 30 miles west of Norfolk.
Nazario was driving a newly purchased SUV when the officers demanded that he exit the car in December because he did not have a permanent rear license plate. When he told police that he was “honestly afraid to get out” of the car, the officer replied, “Yeah, you should be!”
According to the complaint, Nazario, a health services administrations officer at the Virginia National Guard, was in uniform when he was driving home Dec. 5. Body-camera footage of the incident went viral over the weekend, with his name trending on Twitter.
The federal filing, obtained by The Washington Post, was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia on April 2. Nazario is seeking at least $1 million in damages and for the court to rule that Gutierrez and Crocker violated his constitutional rights, specifically the Fourth Amendment. The lawsuit says police also threatened to end Nazario’s military career if he spoke out about the incident.
The officers eventually released Nazario without charges. Nazario’s lawyer previously told The Washington Post that he has had recurring nightmares since the incident.
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The Washington Post’s Timothy Bella contributed to this report.