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Damon was originally charged with one count of driving under the influence and one count of resisting an officer without violence, according to an arrest affidavit. Court documents show he pleaded not guilty to the DUI charges, and the resistance charge was dropped.
According to the arrest affidavit, his breathalyzer was at 0.30% two hours after police first arrested him, nearly four times the state’s 0.08% threshold.
According to the affidavit, an officer said he stopped an SUV around 1:23 a.m. after seeing it drifting down the road and nearly colliding with a guardrail.
The video shows the moment the officer approached the vehicle. As the door opens, the officer can be heard saying to Damon several times, “shut your door” as he approaches his SUV. The video shows Damon’s wife Michelle Mangan-Damon getting out of the SUV and asking, “What’s going on right now?”
According to the affidavit, the officer described Damon as “extremely unstable on his feet and his speech was extremely muddled”. The officer added that he smelled of alcohol coming from Damon.
The officer said Mangan-Damon continued to disobey his orders to stay in the car and that at one point Damon then fell back between the officer and his wife, the affidavit states.
The officer said he then grabbed Damon and escorted him to stand in front of the police car, ordering him to say there, the affidavit states.
The video shows Mangan-Damon walking towards the driver’s side of the SUV when the officer grabbed his left wrist to stop him. Damon then stepped in and stood between the officer and the woman.
In the video, the officer can be heard saying “fight one-two, actually” on his police radio.
The body camera fell to the ground, showing both Damon and the officer. At one point, Damon can be heard repeatedly saying, “Blue lives matter,” in reference to his support for the police.
Two officers were eventually able to handcuff Damon and his wife, according to the video and the affidavit.
“I know people are trying to target me because I’m a Trump supporter,” Damon later said.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with it,” replies an officer.
“Yes, that’s right,” Damon said.
“It’s not here or there right now; that’s not why I’m stopping you,” the officer said.
Stuart Hyman, who represents Damon and his wife, told CNN on Wednesday that the body camera video did not show some of the allegations made by police, including the alleged driving pattern that led to the arrest.
“If you watch the video then you saw that the driving model was not on the video that was being told and yet there was a camera in the car that could have recorded that,” Hyman said.
Hyman added that the incident was “not a classic example of how a police officer should handle this type of situation,” explaining that the officer does not try to de-escalate when Mangan-Damon does not comply as well as when Damon tried to intervene. .
Hyman told CNN that Mangan-Damon had not been charged.
CNN has contacted the Windermere PD for a response to the attorney’s statements.
CNN’s Travis Caldwell contributed to this report.
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