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Texas police have dropped a misdemeanor charge against a black man who was arrested last week on his way home during a snowstorm.
Rodney Reese, 18, has been charged with being a pedestrian on the pavement after being pulled over by police in Plano. He was returning home after working at Walmart last Tuesday, according to reports.
“There is a lot of information that we know about this case that we didn’t know at the time. These officers did not know his age. They didn’t know he was 18. They didn’t know he worked at Walmart. They didn’t know where he lived, ”Plano Police Chief Ed Drain told FOX 4 in Dallas / Fort Worth.
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WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE
The department released body-camera footage of the incident on Friday, indicating that officers responded to a welfare check after a caller reported that a black man “in a sleeved shirt shorts and shorts “” stumbled “as he walked in the cold and freezing conditions. Reese was found by officers wearing a t-shirt and pants.
Drain said the arrest did not comply with welfare checks, which is why officers were called to investigate.
“They should have brought him home, that’s where he should have gone,” he added.
Police said the officers were concerned for his well-being in the midst of the cold weather as well as the possibility that he was in “mental crisis, delusional or weakened”, so they followed him.
“I’m on my way home. I’m straight,” Reese said in body camera footage.
“Very good, but you are walking in the middle of the road,” replied an officer.
Rodney Reese, 18, is captured in bodycam footage on his way home before being arrested by police on February 16.
(Plano Police Department)
“I understand that. My hurt,” Reese replied.
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Officers continued to follow Reese for about two minutes before stopping to tell him they were “investigating.”
“I don’t care. I’m going home,” Reese replied.
Officers then informed him that he was being held, according to body camera footage. The officer who made the arrest said Reese resisted the arrest, but officers chose not to change him, according to the department.
“They just treated me like I was a criminal or something,” Reese said in an interview with FOX 4. “Just a simple meeting. A simple meeting. That’s why I tried to dodge it, so I can get home, I don’t know. “
Reese said he believed he was arrested because he was black. Drain said he did not believe race was a factor in the arrest.
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“But I can’t get into people’s hearts, I can’t get into people’s heads,” added the chef.
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