{"id":85677,"date":"2025-07-23T10:28:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T10:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85677\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T10:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T10:28:13","slug":"black-man-punched-and-dragged-from-car-by-florida-deputies-to-speak-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85677\/","title":{"rendered":"Black man punched and dragged from car by Florida deputies to speak out"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 A Black man who was shown on video being punched and dragged<\/a> from his car by Florida deputies during a traffic stop will speak to the public on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

William McNeil Jr., along with his family and attorneys, is set to host a news conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Paul Church of Jacksonville<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Footage of the 22-year-old man\u2019s arrest has sparked nationwide outrage, with civil rights lawyers accusing authorities of fabricating their arrest report. The video shows McNeil was sitting in the driver\u2019s seat, asking to speak to the Jacksonville deputies\u2019 supervisor, when authorities broke his window, punched him in the face, pulled him from the vehicle, punched him again, and threw him to the ground.<\/p>\n

But Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters<\/a> says there\u2019s more to the story than the cellphone video that went viral. He warned the public about \u201ca rush to judgment\u201d that could lead to faulty conclusions. McNeil\u2019s lawyers say the video clearly depicts police brutality.<\/p>\n

Body camera footage of the encounter shows McNeil had been repeatedly told to exit the vehicle. And, though McNeil earlier had his car door open while talking with authorities, he later closed and appeared to keep it locked for about three minutes before deputies forcibly removed him, the video shows. The vantage point of the body camera footage that was released makes it difficult to see the punches that were thrown.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The cellphone footage from the Feb. 19 arrest shows that seconds before being dragged outside, McNeil had his hands up and did not appear to be resisting as he asked, \u201cWhat is your reason?\u201d He had pulled over and had been accused of not having his headlights on, even though it was daytime, his lawyers said.<\/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,\u201d lawyers Ben Crump and Harry Daniels said in a statement. Crump is a Black civil rights attorney who has gained national prominence representing victims of police brutality and vigilante violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWilliam was calm and compliant,\u201d they said. \u201cYet instead of answers, he got his window smashed and was punched in the face, all over a questionable claim about headlights in broad daylight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sheriff said the cellphone camera footage from inside the car \u201cdoes not comprehensively capture the circumstances surrounding the incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of that stems from the distance and perspective of the recording cell phone camera,\u201d the sheriff said in a statement, adding that the video did not capture events that occurred before officers decided to arrest McNeil.<\/p>\n

Cameras \u201ccan only capture what can be seen and heard,\u201d the sheriff added. \u201cSo much context and depth are absent from recorded footage because a camera simply cannot capture what is known to the people depicted in it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 A Black man who was shown on video being punched and dragged from his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":85678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[20148,413,6064,723,57,57901,118,7310,2936,50,33704,57900,2068,61,67,132,68,55479],"class_list":{"0":"post-85677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-black-experience","10":"tag-civil-rights","11":"tag-fl-state-wire","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-harry-daniels","15":"tag-human-rights","16":"tag-jacksonville","17":"tag-law-enforcement","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-parties-and-entertaining","20":"tag-police-brutality","21":"tag-race-and-ethnicity","22":"tag-u-s-news","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-william-mcneil-jr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114902081339325549","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85677","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=85677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}