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CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Ty Turner was placing campaign fliers on cars Monday in Uptown Charlotte, not far from the Moral Monday rally. “They watched me the whole time, put the fliers on the cars,” he says of two CMPD officers on bikes. Turner says the officers approached him. One told him to remove all the fliers because it violated a city ordinance. Turner asked to see which specific ordinance he had violated and says one officer began looking it up while Turner engaged in an escalating confrontation with the other officer. Turner says, “Upon asking him for the ordinance, he became upset, he said you’re gonna get those fliers (off the cars), let me see some ID!”
Turner declined to show ID and also refused to turn off his cell phone camera, which he was using to record the exchange. Others had begun recording by then, too. Officers can be heard on video telling Turner he was being placed under arrest. But Turner says he wasn’t taken straight to the jail. He says he was first driven to a dumpster area behind a nearby theater. Turner says the in-car police camera was on him. WCCB has requested that video from CMPD.
After the officers talked for several minutes, Turner says they then drove him to jail. He says he completed most of the booking process. “Right when I was about to have my picture taken, that’s when the Captain came in,” says Turner.
Turner says the Captain asked him, in short, how they could resolve the situation. Turner says, “He took me to the deputies; he told the deputies, ‘I’m unarresting him.’ Now, I’ve never heard that and one of the deputies said,’In my ten years of being here, I’ve never seen that before.”
CMPD tells WCCB that despite the video of the officers telling Turner he was under arrest, Turner was only “detained,” and not arrested. We have asked about what the Captain allegedly said and did to “unarrest” Turner, as well as whether any action is being taken to address the bike officer. We’ve also asked CMPD to tell us how many times they’ve “unarrested” someone.
County Commissioner Pat Cotham was at the rally and heard about what happened. She says, “He (Turner) felt like he had done nothing wrong, and felt he was just trying to give out information. And he was trying to find out from police what the problem was.”
Leaders at Wednesday’s NAACP news conference will discuss profiling, excessive force and whether this issue with Turner can be brought before the Citizen’s Review Board.
