Even though this incident took place earlier this year, the footage just recently surfaced on Facebook, showing New Mexico State Police officers forcefully removing a driver from his car for reportedly refusing to comply with their demands after 15 minutes worth of warnings.
The video shows the officers grabbing the driver, Phillp Page, by the arm and dragging him out of the car, while passenger Angela Fisher-Herrara filmed and begged them to not break his arm.
It would seem that the whole thing started because of a seat belt violation, although we have no way of determining if the driver and passenger are telling the truth about wearing theirs. They clearly are during this part of the confrontation, but we can’t know if that was the case prior to the officers approaching the vehicle.
The officers and Page argued for 15 minutes, during which the latter refused to lower his window. He also refused to give his identification 14 times and was warned at least eight times that if he doesn’t roll down his window, the officers would arrest him, as reported by the Daily Mail.
“You haven’t even asked me for my license or registration,” argued Page, albeit to no avail, as one of the officers proceeded to break the window with his bare hands. He was then dragged out of the car and placed under arrest.
New Mexico State Police chief Pete Kassetas stated that Page could have avoided the incident had he ‘followed the rules’.
“I’m standing by my officers,” said Kassetas. “At some point after a certain amount of time of noncompliance, something has to happen. We didn’t break the window and drag him out of the car because he didn’t have a seat belt on. He got removed from the vehicle forcefully because he didn’t comply.”
Both Page as well as his passenger were arrested for resisting, evading or obstructing an officer, concealing identity, dialing 911 to report a false alarm or complaint, and a seat belt violation.