A Michigan state trooper is facing charges for punching a Black man in the chest after reportedly accosting him for not walking on the sidewalk.
The incident captured on body-camera video shows Trooper Paul E. Arrowood repeatedly punching Michael D. Wilson, 28, while he screamed for help on a Saginaw, Michigan, roadway in September 2022. Arrowood wrote in a police report that Wilson was resisting arrest.
Arrowood, 43, was suspended 20 days after the Sept. 4 beating. An MSP investigation yielded a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of assault and battery for the trooper on March 3.
Video shows the trooper and his partner approaching Wilson as he walking on a street where a sidewalk was available.
“I ain’t even doing nothing,” Wilson says as the two troopers grabbed him from the side of the street.
Arrowood slams him to the ground after he refuses to put his hands behind his back.
Once Wilson is on the ground, both of the troopers try to restrain him, but the body camera is obstructed in the process.
“Roll over, man,” one of the troopers says.
“Help! Help! Help!” Wilson yells as the troopers tussle with him on the ground, trying to restrain his hands. “I can get my hands behind my back, Bro.”
“Roll the f——k over,” says Arrowood as he punches Wilson repeatedly in the chest.
“Help! Help! Help! He whupping my a**,” Wilson screams.
Another trooper also threatens to use his Taser on Wilson before Arrowood lambastes him with blows again.
“You a b——ch,” Arrowood says.
The trooper wrote in the incident report that he told Wilson to “stop” walking on the roadway, and Wilson offered to get on the sidewalk, which Arrowood said was “active resistance.” He admitted to striking the man at least 13 times with closed fists as a form of “physical control,” the report shows.
“Due to the fact that (Wilson) was attempting to pull his hands away from…
Read the full article here
