This image captured from bodycam video released by the Childersburg (Ala.) Police Department and provided by attorney Harry Daniels shows Michael Jennings, left, in custody in Childersburg, Ala., on the 22nd. May. Jennings was helping a friend by watering flowers when officers showed up and briefly contained him.
Childersburg Police Department via AP
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Childersburg Police Department via AP
This image captured from bodycam video released by the Childersburg (Ala.) Police Department and provided by attorney Harry Daniels shows Michael Jennings, left, in custody in Childersburg, Ala., on the 22nd. May. Jennings was helping a friend by watering flowers when officers showed up and briefly contained him.
Childersburg Police Department via AP
Michael Jennings, black pastor Caught while watering the neighbor’s flowerssubmitted a federal lawsuit against the police officers involved in his detention.
The lawsuit also names the city of Childersburg, which oversees the police department that arrested Jennings, as a defendant.
Jennings, a longtime pastor at Vision of Abundant Life Church in Sylacauga, Ala., is represented by national civil rights attorney, Harry Daniels, and attorneys Bethaney Embry Jones, Joi Travis, and Roderick Van Daniels. They held a news conference Saturday with the Alabama NAACP to discuss the incident.
“I’m here for accountability and I’m here for justice,” Jennings said.
The lawsuit says Jennings is suffering from emotional distress and “severe PTSD-type symptoms” including nightmares and flashbacks.
He is asking a jury to hear the case and determine damages and punitive damages as well as money to cover the costs of the case, including attorneys’ fees.
NAACP Alabama President Benard Simelton said in a statement to NPR that there are concerns about the training of officers.
He added: “These poor judgment decisions reflect poorly on the kind of training Childersburg police officers receive…if they act on police instructions.
Attorneys representing Jennings said the release body camera video would further clear the way for “legal action against officers and beyond.”
“This video makes it clear that these officers decided to arrest Pastor Jennings less than five minutes after pulling up and then attempting to rewrite history claiming he failed to identify himself when it was the first thing he did,” Daniels said in a statement to NPR.
Jennings said he was doing a neighborhood act of watering his suburban neighbor with flowers, at their request, on May 22 when a Childersburg police officer showed up.
“I should have been here. I’m Pastor Jennings. I live across the street,” Jennings told the officer in full-body camera footage obtained by NPR.
“I was looking for their home while they were away, watering them with flowers,” he said.
Michael Jennings is the pastor at this church in Sylacauga, Ala. Jennings was arrested while watering flowers at a neighbor’s house in nearby Childersburg in May.
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Michael Jennings is the pastor at this church in Sylacauga, Ala. Jennings was arrested while watering flowers at a neighbor’s house in nearby Childersburg in May.
Jay Reeves / AP
After they arrived, police arrested Jennings and put him on the back of a police cruiser – then charged him with obstructing government operations, according to the criminal complaint.
“When they pulled for the first time, I knew it was going to be something,” Jennings said in an interview with NPR.
Jennings recounted that when police arrived at his neighbor’s house, he immediately noticed the officers’ behavior.
“[The officer] Park the car around the back and go around the front. And right away, you could tell by his voice that I had committed a crime,” he said.
inside Video is 20 minutes long, a Childersburg cop approached Jennings when he was seen on camera watering plants in the yard. When the employee approached Jennings and asked what he was doing, he replied, “Watering the flowers.”
The unnamed officer asked Jennings if a car parked in a neighbor’s driveway belonged to him. Jennings told the officer that the car belonged to his neighbor.
Later in the video, the officer asks the pastor if he lives at home and he tells the officer he doesn’t.
The exchange between Jennings and the officer resulted in shouting as Jennings explained to the officers that he had done nothing wrong. He told the officers: “I told him I was a pastor. … You want to lock me up, lock me up. … Lock me up and see what happens. . I want you.”
Jennings, a former police officer, is seen on video handcuffed for not providing identification to officers.
The charges against Jennings were subsequently dismissed by a city judge in June.
Throughout the many NPR reports on this incident, the Childersburg Police Department did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.
Law of Alabama says that any officer “can stop any person overseas from being in a public place” if they suspect the person is committing a crime or has committed a felony or another offence – and may demand Ask for the person’s name, address, and an explanation of their actions.
However, Jennings’ attorneys emphasized in their statement that “Alabama’s Stop and Identity Law does not require Pastor Jennings … to identify himself because he is not in public.”
