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Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said Monday that the officers in a viral video from a February traffic stop<\/b><\/a> that made the rounds on social media this weekend have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the State Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n Waters said that the officers\u2019 actions during the Feb. 19 traffic stop where William McNeil Jr. was arrested are still under an internal review by the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n During the news conference, multiple angles of body-worn camera footage of the incident were shown.<\/p>\n Body cam video shows McNeil closing his car door after interacting with Officer D. Bowers, the responding officer. Bowers tells McNeil to step out of the vehicle as he is under arrest for resisting. Both interactions were not included in the original video posted to social media.<\/p>\n Waters said Bowers has been stripped of his authority during the internal investigation and said he will not \u201cdefend or commend\u201d his actions until all the facts are determined.<\/p>\n Action News Jax told you Sunday that McNeil Jr. confirmed he has retained civil rights lawyers Benjamin Crump and Harry Daniels to \u201cfight for justice.\u201d<\/p>\n According to McNeil, the stop began when officers pulled him over, claiming he was required to have his headlights on due to cloudy weather.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n \u201cI said, so what did, I did it wrong? He said well one, your headlights are off under this weather,\u201d McNeil said in the video from the arrest posted to social media.<\/p>\n McNeil said in the video he questioned the stop and asked for a supervisor, and that\u2019s when the situation escalated.<\/p>\n Moments later, an officer is seen breaking the driver\u2019s window and punching him. The video shows McNeil with his hands up, asking what\u2019s happening, then being struck again.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n McNeil\u2019s legal team released the following statement on Monday afternoon ahead of the news conference:<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened to William McNeil Jr. is a disturbing reminder that even the most basic rights \u2014 like asking why you\u2019ve been pulled over \u2014 can be met with violence for Black Americans. William was calm and compliant. Yet instead of answers, he got his window smashed and was punched in the face, all over a questionable claim about headlights in broad daylight.<\/p>\n \u201cThis wasn\u2019t law enforcement, it was brutality. All video from JSO should be released to ensure there is transparency for McNeil and the community. We demand full accountability from the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office and justice for William McNeil Jr.\u201d <\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said Monday that the officers in a viral video from a February traffic stop…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":81756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,55899,55900,3188,723,7347,7310,16047,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,989,10881,54911],"class_list":{"0":"post-81755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-benjamin-crump","10":"tag-cam-video","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-free-action-news-jax","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-jacksonville-sheriffs-office","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa","22":"tag-video","23":"tag-viral-video","24":"tag-william-mcneil"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114893649587954787","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}