Holly MatkinRaleigh, NC – An allegedly impaired driver accused of slamming into multiple vehicles has levied excessive force allegations against the officers who forcibly removed him from his vehicle (video below).
Despite the slew of charges against him, 22-year-old Braily Andres Batista Concepcion denied having driven while impaired, and said he doesn’t recall having collided with any other vehicles, WTVD reported.
“I feel like it wasn’t necessary, you know what I’m saying?” Batista Concepcion told the news outlet.
“He didn’t give me the chance [to get out],” he complained to WXII. “As soon as he came to the car, he was just being aggressive.”
The incident began at approximately 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 14, when police received a report of a hit-and-run in the 3500-block of Wake Forest Road.
The caller said that the driver sped away from the scene and crashed into another vehicle in a parking lot near Wake Forest Road and Albans Drive.
As he fled that crash scene, the driver slammed into a utility pole.
“We just got ran into,” one of the crash victims said in the 911 call, according to WXII. “He ran into us twice and took off.”
“They hit me,” a second victim said in another 911 call. “And then I stopped at the red light and they looked in the mirror and they were trying to back up and hit me again.”
A Raleigh police officer spotted a smashed-up vehicle matching the description of the suspect’s car and pulled it over on Navaho Drive, WTVD reported.
As he approached the driver, later identified as Batista Concepcion, he ordered him to turn off the vehicle, bodycam and dashcam footage showed.
The car lurched forward for a moment before the suspect brought it to a stop.
The officer opened the driver’s side door and again told Batista Concepcion to turn off the car.
He complied, but ignored the officer’s requests for him to place his hands on the steering wheel, bodycam footage showed.
Batista Concepcion casually glanced up at the officer just as he reached into the car and tried to gain control of the suspect’s hands.
The driver immediately pulled away, resulting in the officer grabbing onto him and attempting to remove him from the car.
“I was just like – what’s going on? Like, why you doing that?” Batista Concepcion told WXII.
The suspect managed to pull himself back into the car, which was also occupied by at least two underage passengers.
One of the passengers began recording the ensuing brawl using a cell phone.
“Yo! What you doing?” the passenger repeatedly whined as the officer delivered knee and hand strikes to the uncooperative suspect. “You’re getting recorded!”
A second officer arrived at the scene and helped pull Batista Concepcion out of the car and onto the pavement, where the suspect continued to resist their efforts to handcuff him, the video showed.
“Yo, he’s lucky I don’t got my .40…” one of the passengers muttered.
“You see how we being treated out here?” another passenger complained as the officers finally managed to roll Batista Concepcion onto his stomach. “Look at this s–t, bruh.”
The suspect was bleeding from his arms and face by the time the brawl concluded.
He was arrested on charges of DWI, resisting arrest, possession of marijuana, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and three counts of hit-and-run, WTVD reported.
Just one day later, Batista Concepcion was out of jail posting photos of his injuries to social media and complaining about the officers’ use of force.
He said he suffered a black eye, multiple bruises, and that he had to have stitches to his face, WXII reported.
“He was telling me, um, to come out the car. I’m like, ‘I’m about to come out the car but why am I gettin’ pulled or anything?’” he told WTVD.
“[The officer] started attacking me,” he said, according to the news outlet. “[The officer’s] like, ‘Get out of the car, get out of the car.’ So, I’m like, I’m not about to get out of the car because you hitting me.”
Batista Concepcion said he plans to file a lawsuit against the Raleigh Police Department (RPD), WTVD reported.
Recidivism Reduction Educational Program Services Executive Director Kerwin Pittman said that police overreacted, regardless of the charges against Batista Concepcion.
“It still does not warrant the sense of force that was used against him,” Pittman told WTVD. “And for him to be left bloodied on the concrete essentially.”
Protesters have demanded that an oversight committee be established to review use-of-force incidents, WXII reported.
Some critics likened the city’s police force to a criminal gang.
The RPD has opened an internal investigation into the officers’ use of force, WCNC reported.
Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown urged the community not to rush to judgement without getting all of the facts, and noted that the incident could have been avoided altogether if the suspect would have simply cooperated with the officer.
“There’s always more to the story,” she said during a press conference.
You can watch cellphone, dashcam, and bodycam footage of the officers’ encounter with Batista Concepcion in the video below: