Watch: US faculty band director tasered after refusing to cease music Specific Occasions

WARNING: This story offers with police violence and could also be distressing

Police physique digital camera video exhibits an Alabama highschool band director being shocked with a stun gun and arrested by officers in entrance of screaming college students, in a chaotic scuffle that broke out after he refused to right away cease the band because it performed within the bleachers following a soccer recreation.

State Consultant Juandalynn Givan, who’s representing band director Johnny Mims as his lawyer, stated on Tuesday that the incident is an “alarming abuse of energy” that as an alternative “ought to have been ought to have been de-escalated.”

The Birmingham Police Division stated it stays below investigation however the band director resisted arrest and allegedly pushed an officer.

The altercation erupted after the sport final Thursday between Minor and Jackson-Olin excessive faculties.

Within the physique digital camera video launched by police Monday night time, officers are seen approaching Mims, the band director at Minor, because the band performs within the stands. They ask him a number of instances to cease the band and clear the stadium. Mims continues to direct the band and replies to the officer, “Get out of my face.”

“We’re fixing to go,” he continues. “That is their final tune.”

Because the music continues, an officer tells Mims he’ll go to jail. and one other says she’s going to contact the college. Mims flashes two thumbs up and says, “That’s cool.”

“Put him in handcuffs,” an officer is later heard saying.

The video exhibits that the band performed for about two minutes after officers approached Mims.

After the music stops, officers are seen on the video apparently attempting to arrest him, in a scrum of our bodies. One says Mims swung at an officer and should go to jail, and Mims denies doing so. An officer then shocks Mims with a stun gun.

College students — greater than 140 had been current, in keeping with Givan — are heard screaming within the night time because the arrest performs out.

Police stated on Friday in a press release that Mims refused to place his palms behind his again and the arresting officer stated he was pushed by the band director, which led to using the stun gun.

Givan stated Tuesday that she just isn’t going to debate “whether or not my consumer was proper or my consumer was improper” however stated officers “ought to have by no means drawn their Taser.”

Givan, who’s a graduate of Minor Excessive Faculty, stated Birmingham has a excessive murder charge “but you’ve bought legislation enforcement officers at a darn children’ recreation that might assault my consumer excessively and abuse him in entrance of children.”

Officer Truman Fitzgerald, a spokesman for the division, stated Mims was charged with disorderly conduct, bodily harassment and resisting arrest. The police chief has met with the mayor and the superintendents of the 2 faculty techniques, Fitzgerald stated.

Additionally on Tuesday, metropolis Mayor Randall L. Woodfin introduced the formation of a civilian-led Public Security Advisory Committee, although his workplace stated it had been in growth for a while and was not associated to the incident on the soccer recreation.