Video reveals highschool band director shocked with stun gun, arrested after refusing to cease music

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Police physique digital camera video reveals 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 instantly cease the band because it performed within the bleachers following a soccer sport.

State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, who’s representing band director Johnny Mims as his legal professional, stated Tuesday that the incident is an “alarming abuse of energy” that as an alternative “ought to have been ought to have been deescalated.”

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 colleges.

Within the physique digital camera video launched by police Monday evening, officers are seen approaching Mims, the band director at Minor, because the band performs within the stands. They ask him a number of occasions 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 reveals that the band performed for about two minutes after officers approached Mims.

After the music stops, officers are seen on the video apparently making an attempt 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 line with Givan — are heard screaming within the evening because the arrest performs out.

Police stated Friday in a press release that Mims refused to place his fingers 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 isn’t going to debate “whether or not my consumer was proper or my consumer was mistaken” however stated officers “ought to have by no means drawn their Taser.”

Givan, who’s a graduate of Minor Excessive College, stated Birmingham has a excessive murder price “but you’ve bought regulation enforcement officers at a darn youngsters’ sport that will 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 with the mayor and the superintendents of the 2 faculty methods, Fitzgerald stated.

Additionally 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 improvement for a while and was not associated to the incident on the soccer sport.