Another day, another group of police officers exposed after committing egregious acts of police brutality against a Black man who was simply asking why he was pulled over and why he was being ordered to exit his vehicle.
A video has recently gone viral, showing 22-year-old William McNeil Jr. being stopped by a Jacksonville, Florida, police officer on Feb. 19. The officer told McNeil he stopped him because his headlights weren’t on, despite it appearing to be daytime. So, an understandably confused Black man points out that the cop’s reason for the stop doesn’t make sense. Then he’s asked, for no discernible reason, to get out of his car, and when he doesn’t immediately follow that demand, well, you can see in the video below what happens next.
From ABC News:
In the video, officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office say they pulled McNeil over because the vehicle’s headlights were not on. McNeil questioned the traffic stop because it wasn’t raining and it was still light outside.
An officer, who cannot be seen in the video, is heard saying, “It doesn’t matter, you’re still required to have headlights on.”
An officer asks McNeil to step out of the car, and when McNeil asks for the officer’s supervisor, another officer punches the driver’s window until it shatters. The officer then punches McNeil in the head before unlocking the vehicle door, unbuckling his seatbelt and forcibly removing him from the driver’s seat.
Once out of the vehicle, multiple officers then gather around McNeil. One officer is seen grabbing McNeil’s head and punching him in the chin before forcing him to the ground.
Florida law states clearly that motorists must use their headlights “from sunset to sunrise, including twilight hours,” or “during any rain, smoke, or fog.” So, the officer didn’t have a real reason to pull McNeil over in the first place, and there’s plenty of reason to wonder what the officer was really fishing for that prompted him to weasel his way around probable cause. While we’re all wondering about that, we might as well wonder why McNeil’s completely reasonable inquiry as to why he was pulled over was responded to by a demand that he exit his car. For what? To search him and his vehicle? Why? Did McNeil’s failure to operate his headlights in broad daylight provide reasonable suspicion that he needed to be further detained and searched?
It appears that even before breaking his car window, dragging him out and beating on him, these cops already had every intention of violating McNeil’s civil rights, and their fragile blue egos sent them over the top once they saw McNeil wouldn’t let said violations go unchallenged.
On Sunday, civil attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels announced McNeil retained them to represent him.
“I am absolutely disgusted by the actions of these officers but, unfortunately, I’m not surprised,” Daniels said in a statement. “The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has a long history of this kind of needless violence and brutality.”
In his own statement, Crump noted correctly that “it should be obvious to anyone watching this video that William McNeil wasn’t a threat to anyone.”
“He was calmly exercising his constitutional rights, and they beat him for it,” he added.
A statement sent to NewsOne from Crump’s office reads: “This is only the latest in a long line of excessive force incidents involving the JSO. In September 2023, the department was the focus of a national outcry after a video of JSO officers violently beating 24-year-old Le’Keian Woods while he was unarmed went viral. In 2019, JSO officers faced a federal lawsuit for killing 22-year-old Jamee Johnson after pulling him over for an alleged seat belt violation.”
Meanwhile, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters issued a statement Sunday, saying, “We are aware of a video circulating on social media showing a traffic stop represented to be from February 19, 2025.”
“We have launched an internal investigation into it and the circumstances surrounding this incident,” Waters continued. “We hold our officers to the highest standards and are committed to thoroughly determining exactly what occurred.”
It’s worth noting that Waters announced this internal investigation a full five months after the incident took place, begging the question: Would there be any investigation at all if the video hadn’t recently gone viral?
These cops conducted what should be considered an illegal stop, broke McNeil’s window, forcibly pulled him out of the car, and beat him like it was just another day. That’s how ingrained police violence against Black people is in the very culture of policing.
Hopefully, William McNeil Jr. receives all of the justice he is owed.
SEE ALSO:
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Video Shows Florida Cops Beat Black Man After He Questioned Why He Was Stopped Over Headlights During Daytime
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