A new angle of a viral arrest reveals that sheriff’s deputies in Jacksonville, Florida, escalated their response toward 22-year-old William McNeil even more than was originally reported, his attorneys say.
The image, which McNeil’s lawyers Ben Crump and Harry Daniels publicized on Tuesday, comes from body camera footage the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office released last week.
In it, a sheriff’s deputy appears to be pointing a gun at McNeil, a Black college student, after deputies smashed his car window and punched him in the face.
“That day I was telling the truth,” McNeil said of his arrest during a Tuesday press conference. “From the evidence in the picture, I was being held at gunpoint, and I didn’t feel safe.”
The newly released findings further highlight deputies’ use of force in the February encounter, the latest case to come under longstanding scrutiny of how such violence disproportionately targets Black Americans.
