The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is defending the actions of four officers caught on camera punching and elbowing an unarmed suspect in the head during an arrest.
The incident took place on March 26, 2016. It started when officers stopped a car they said was wanted in connection with a string of larcenies. James Yarborough, a passenger in the car, ran from police.
Eventually, officers caught up with Yarborough after a foot chase. Once on the ground, officers struggled with Yarborough for roughly four minutes before putting him in handcuffs.
It’s what happened during the four-minute-long struggle that Yarborough said should be considered excessive force. The entire incident—starting with the traffic stop and concluding after Yarborough was loaded into an ambulance—was caught on body cameras worn by two CMPD officers.
Decision to run
In hindsight, James Yarborough realizes he shouldn’t have run from police after they stopped the car in which he was a passenger. Yarborough said he was in the car getting a ride back to his truck that had run out of gas when police stopped the vehicle.
Yarborough, who has multiple federal convictions for illegally possessing firearms, said the man giving him a ride back to his truck tried to sell him a pistol. When police stopped the car, Yarborough said, he decided it would be better to run away from the pistol than get charged with having a gun.
That’s a decision he now wishes he had made differently. “The only thing I did wrong that day was run. That is the only thing I did wrong that day,” Yarborough told WBTV. “I regret running.”
The video captured by the first officer starts with the traffic stop. It shows Yarborough starting to run and the officer chases after him. Both men are on foot.