Florida man’s bike falls over while he listens to police commands. Officers ignore his raised hands and immediately punch, kick and taser him because he took too long to stop

Lakeland, Florida, police say they’d to kick, punch and use a Taser on Marcus Adams — in what they described as “protective action” — because he wouldn’t follow commands during an incident earlier this 12 months.

However, recently released body camera footage indicates they’re lying.

This just isn’t surprising, on condition that police have a long history of abuse captured on camera.

The latest incident to come to light occurred on February 7, when Adams was riding his bike on the campus of Florida Southern College and decided to stop and smoke a cigarette. A security guard ordered him to leave the premises, which he did.

He was already off campus and riding his bicycle down a residential street when several Lakeland police cruisers pulled up and ordered him to stop.

Video obtained by WTSP shows him slowing his bike, apparently trying to comply, but then falling sideways onto a tuft of grass – that’s when the officers tackled him, used a stun gun, kicked him within the legs, put a knee on his back and repeatedly punched him within the face with their forearms.

“What am I getting stopped for? Why am I getting stopped for a cigarette? On campus?” Adams asks.

“No,” the officer replies, “Because you disobeyed my orders.”

According to the arrest report, Adams, 36, is charged with trespassing, possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, assault on a law enforcement officer and resisting an officer without violence.

However, he had already left the campus, and there isn’t a evidence within the video that he attacked the officer or disobeyed his orders.

While he admitted there was methamphetamine and other drug paraphernalia in his backpack, he didn’t consider it justified the aggressive behavior of the police officers.

But Lakeland police still maintain he deserved the beating because he didn’t follow orders quickly enough.

“Had Mr. Adams complied with the officers’ commands,” Lakeland police explained in a press release to WTSP, “this incident would not have resulted in the officers taking protective action.”

But what police call protective actions, attorney Bobby DiCello, whose law firm has sued dozens of police agencies across the country, calls an abuse of power.

“These empty promises of change, these empty promises of a community that can work together, they’re over and done with,” DiCello told a bunch of residents during a community meeting earlier this month, according to WTSP.

“I promise you the work we do together will change that. Just like we’ve changed in other cities we’ve been to. New regulations. New oversight requirements for your police department. That’s on the way,” the lawyer added.

But since that meeting, a brand new video has emerged revealing scandalous abuses throughout the police department that oversees the town of 120,000 about 35 miles east of Tampa.

“Well, as soon as I watched the video, I immediately thought of all the other cases we’ve seen in Lakeland and it’s the same pattern,” Pastor Clayton Cowart of the Poor Minority Justice Association told WTSP, which has been fielding calls about abuse for years.

“It’s the same situation. Now we’ve seen black, we’ve seen white, that’s culture.”

Previous incident

Less than two months ago, during a Memorial Day pool party at an apartment complex, Lakeland police officers were videotaped beating and shocking a 16-year-old black boy named Jahmal Hudson after they said he attacked them.

However, video footage recorded by a witness doesn’t show this, and all charges against him were dropped lower than two weeks later, according to Fox 13.

Police say in an arrest report that they were called to an apartment complex where individuals who didn’t live there have been swimming. Once there, they told everyone to leave, but they said Hudson refused to obey their orders and even put his hand in front of one in every of the officers’ face, telling him, “I don’t have to talk to you.”

However, police neglected to mention of their report that one in every of the officers began making fun of Hudson’s weight, telling him he needs to be sitting next to him within the gym, not the pool.

Hudson, who weighs 374 kilos and is 6 feet tall, said he was offended by the remark and put his hand in front of the officer’s face, telling him he didn’t want to hear anything more from the officer because he was getting out of the pool. The officer then arrested him.

Below is the outline of the incident from the police report:

However, if any of this were true, it is very unlikely the fees could be dropped before the 2 weeks are up.

Third incident

Another incident by which Lakeland police officers were videotaped beating and tasering a black man and then admitting he attacked them led to charges against the person being dismissed greater than a 12 months later because the arresting officers weren’t credible.

Lakeland police stopped Antwan Glover in December 2022 for not wearing a seat belt, then ordered him out of his automotive after officers noticed marijuana in it.

When he tried to explain that he had a legal medical marijuana license, officers accused him of getting a gun in his bag, which led to a physical altercation. But the footage only shows him being beaten and shocked with a stun gun — not Glover attacking them, as they claimed.

Still, he was charged with three counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and one count of resisting arrest with violence, crimes that would lead to a serious prison sentence for the 37-year-old.

Prosecutors dropped the case in May because they didn’t want to call witnesses from the arresting officers due to obvious credibility issues, including the proven fact that three of the 4 officers were on administrative leave because they were being investigated in an unrelated incident, according to World Health Organization (WFLA).

Pastor Cowart of the Poor Minority Justice Association has been trying to hold the Lakeland Police Department accountable for years, with little success. In January 2023, he organized a community meeting to demand justice and announced that he had asked the federal Department of Justice to investigate the police department. However, greater than a 12 months later, the Department of Justice has shown little interest.

“We have filed some paperwork with the Department of Justice. We want to see an investigation into some of the policies and practices of the Lakeland Police Department,” Cowart told WTSP.

“These types of investigations would allow them to look at all elements of the Lakeland Police Department and see if there are any instances of racial bias or racism and things like that,” Cowart added.