Timmonsville, SC - The South Carolina NAACP president posted about how he was racially profiled on a traffic stop, and now the police chief has responded by releasing bodycam video and calling him a liar (video below.)
NAACP President Rev. Jerrod Moultrie posted to Facebook on April 13 about how he was just racially profiled on a traffic stop.
The allegations in his account are disturbing, and would indicate profiling by the officer - except none of it was true.
Below is a transcript of the interaction as posted by Rev. Moultrie:
Me: hello sir how can I help you
Officer: I am stopping you cause you fail to put on a turn signal and do you have any drugs in the car
Me: sir how would you know If I used my tum signal when you was approaching me as I turn and is there any drugs in your car?
Officer: License and registration
Me:sir can I take off my seat belt and get it
Me: (as i open glove box i said )sir this is a new car i just purchased and all ! have is bill of sale, insurance card and registration from car I am transferring tags
Officer: ok where you work and who car is this and why you in this neighborhood
Me: sir I am a pastor and I live in the house on the left
Officer:And I guess I am the bill gates
Me: sir what's the problem
Officer: I ask who car for the last time and why you in this neighborhood
Me: I told you for last time who car and where I live.( as my neighborhood starts to come out there house) By the way sir can I speak to your supervisor
Officer: walks away with my information When he returned he said did you know your tags comes back to another vehicle
Me: sir I just explain this to you
Officer: you need to park this vehicle and never drive it till you get this straight with DMV
Me: sir I have purchased multiple vehicles and never heard this now officer and I start fussing cause I said well i will be driving my car sir and anyt time I want
Officer: I am waming you to not drive this car till tags get straight and just know I am doing you a favor tonight not taking you to jail or writing you a ticket
Me: sir you might be doing your Self a favor but you certainly not doing me a favor.
The reverend finished off his post by saying that his wife and baby were in the back seat, but still he was profiled and accused of having drugs.
"Guess I can't be a pastor and can't drive a Mercedes Benz and live in a nice neighborhood," Rev. Moultrie said. "...someone needs to answer for this behavior and this officer will."
After seeing the post, local community activist Timothy Waters went down to the police department to look at the bodycam and dash camera footage, according to WPDE.
He was shocked to see that everything the reverend said was a lie.
"Once I got a copy of that body cam, it's as if he made the whole story up. And I felt like he set us back 100 years, because think about all of the racial profiling cases (that) are true," Waters told WPDE.
WPDE reports that Timmonsville Police Chief Billy Brown said that Rev. Moultrie even went so far as to contact him the next morning to claim that he had been racially profiled and mistreated.
"He made a comment that the officer accused him of having drugs in the car. He said that his wife and grandchild was in the car. He asked them not to move because the officer looked as if he might shoot them or something. He also made mention that the officer continued to ask him about his neighborhood. Why was he in that neighborhood? And threaten(ed) to put him in jail in reference to something dealing with the registration to the vehicle," Chief Brown told WPDE. Except all of those accusations were lies.
"When I saw the video, I was shocked that someone who is supposed to be a community leader, a pastor, and head of the NAACP would just come out and tell a blatant lie. It bothered me. It really bothered me, thinking about the racial unrest it could've cost in the community and it's just troubling to me that someone who held a position like that would come out and just tell a lie," Brown told WPDE.
Rev. Moultrie refused to comment to the news station, and instead referred them to Timmonsville NAACP officers Kenneth McAllister and Henry James Dixon.
Both men told the station that they didn't need to see the video because they support Rev. Moultrie, and know that he's a man of integrity who wouldn't lie.
You can see the video of the traffic stop below: