Body cam, incident report tell 2 sides of Sylvania arrest
SYLVANIA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - A police officer is back on the job after being disciplined following an arrest in Screven County.
On Nov. 2, officers were called to a home because of an “unwanted person,” according to reports. It quickly led to a woman being forced to the ground.
The entire incident is caught on a body camera worn by l. Jonathan Simpson with the Sylvania Police Department.
We requested the incident report. What the officer says versus what the body camera shows appears to be two different things.
In the body camera video, which is 16 minutes long, Simpson gets out of his car and approaches the house. While Simpson talks to the owner of the house, he tells the woman standing at the front door to “hang out” with another officer on the scene.
SEE SIMPSON’S PERSONNEL FILE:
Within a minute, things seemed to go south.
Simpson tells the woman to stand in front of the patrol car. It soon led to Simpson wrestling with her on the ground, eventually putting handcuffs on her and putting her inside the car.
In the incident report, Simpson writes: “I asked her if she could step over in front of my car because she wasn’t wanted on property.”
Simpson goes on to say: “I advised her we didn’t have time for this and that she needed to go in front of the car or she’d be arrested.”
Later in the report, Simpson says he “gently put his hand on her arm to escort her to the car — she snatched it away and said don’t touch me. She then swung at me and hit me in the front of my vest.”
Simpson was soon reprimanded as a result of the incident.
In a letter attached to his personnel file, it states he “escalated the incident instead of de-escalating the incident.”
A letter from Chief of Police Shane Burke says within six months, Simpson should take classes on de-escalation and professionalism/ethics.
SEE SIMPSON’S POST FILES:
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