Written by: AnonScarlett
A video and audio recording taken in January that’s surfaced in late August appears to capture an unarmed, unaggressive St. Paul, Minnesota, man being immobilized with a stun gun in front of his children. The video — captured by Christopher Lollie, a musician from East St. Paul — is titled “Black man taken to jail for sitting in a public area.” It was uploaded to YouTube and has been viewed more than 20,000 times since. In the video description, Lollie wrote that police confiscated his phone after the arrest and held it for 6 months.
The video begins with a conversation between Lollie and a white female St. Paul officer who followed him through a skyway. During the exchange, the officer asks Lollie for his name repeatedly; however, he declined to give it to her without an explanation of why he must. She replied, “Because that’s what police do when they’re called.”
“Well, I know my rights, first off,” Lollie replied calmly. “Secondly, I don’t have to let you know who I am if I haven’t broken any laws.”
Lollie then explained that he was on his way to New Horizons Academy to pick up his children and had been sitting in a public area for about 10 minutes before an irate man approached him.
“That’s a public area,” he said. “If there’s no sign that says, ‘This is a private area, you can’t sit here,’ no one can tell me I can’t sit there.”
Over the course of a minute-long stroll, Lollie repeatedly told the officer that there was no problem. He explained that he had been sitting alone after getting off of work, telling the officer: “The problem is: I’m black.” Shortly after that exchange a second officer approaches and quickly escalates the situation. Lollie called out to the approaching male officer — who is also white — who asked what was happening. Lollie repeated his intention to pick up his children as the officer moved to grab him.
“I’ve got to go get my kids,” the man tells the second officer, pulling his arm away while asking not to be touched.
When Lollie asked not to be touched, the officer replied, “Well, you’re going to go to jail then.”
Lollie protested that he had not done anything wrong, and urged officers to wait; however, both continued to try and restrain him while telling him he was jail-bound.
“Come on, brother — this is assault,” Lollie said.
“I’m not here to argue, and I’m not your brother,” the male officer replied.
“I’m not doing anything wrong, sir,” Lollie stated once more.
“Put your hands behind your back, or this is gonna get ugly,” the male officer said.
The video tumbles to black as the male officer says, “You’re gonna get Tased.” At that point, a conversation that had been calm and respectful escalated to cries for help, and pleas for the officers to stop after he saw his children appear.
“My kids are right there!” he cried as the officer shouted at him to put his hands behind his back.
The clicking of the Taser can be heard shortly after Lollie asked an officer not to choke him, explaining that he has asthma. His cries echoed off the walls while the officers restrained him. Afterward, Lollie openly criticized the officers as racist and accused them of assault.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m a working man. I take care of my kids, and I get this? You Tase me? For what?” he demanded. “I don’t have any f——- weapons. You’re the ones with the weapons here.”
Prior to the Taser deployment, Lollie neither raised his voice nor cursed at officers — a point he iterated once he was apparently cuffed. He also pleaded with police to let him go to his children, but was told, “Too late. You’re going to jail.”
In a statement St. Paul Police Chief Tom Smith actually defends his officers’ actions as appropriate. He also contended that the video didn’t convey the whole picture, and stated that his officers were called by private security over a man who was trespassing in an employee’s only area of the First National Bank Building and refused to leave.
“He pulled away and resisted officers’ lawful orders,” Smith said. “They then used the force necessary to safely take him into custody.”
Smith said his officers believed Lollie might either run or fight with him, and that is why they decided to arrest him. Lollie was charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct and obstruction of the legal process. In July, all charges against him were dropped.
That is pretty shitty move by the cops, and they wonder why people are hostel to cops, cause of stuff like this. Guy is going to get his kids and gets treated like a criminal by power hungry cops, He obviously had no intentions of running hence he was there to get his kids, he wasn’t trying to fight or argue he was simply going to get his kids, and that second cops walks along and right away says hes going to jail, for what reason other then the fact the cop was declined his power hungry actions? They do this right in front of his kids and other kids. The cops chief says he agrees with how this was handled? I bet if this was done to any of those cops or their family members the tables would be totally different.. Just because cops have a badge doesn’t mean they can do what ever they please… This is getting worse everyday cops killing innocent people, ruining family’s all because they know they will get away with it and no punishments will be handed out. I have seen these kind of things happen first hand to not only me, but people around me, cops are going as low as to mess with little 12 year olds riding bikes! I mean seriously come on when is enough going to be enough? I am now saying all cops are bad, there is some good ones out there and I salute those said officers, but the other scum bags with nothing better to do then ruin lives and think their badge makes them above to law go fuck yourself, karma indeed does come around one way or another!
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After that, no wonder there’s so many cops being shot! Better not complain! It’s provocation to the society! I bet the chief of police was a white guy. Even Im white and still love black people because they’re friendly. I have autism. I guess some dumb cop will tase me someday. Fucking jackasses…
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU AUTIST GO COMB YOUR NECKBEARD YOU BETA MALE AUTIST HAHAHAHAHAHA DO YOU LIKE MY LITTLE PONY?
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Really? Do you have to be rude like that?
I dont even trust cops anymore. Nor doctors, nor teachers. It’s just too fucking corrupt. Nothing’s right anymore. The planet needs to be reformatted. Reboot and Upgrade.
Cops defense was that the guy would either run or fight. the guy had children to pickup so why would he run? and if he was going to fight, he would have! but he didnt, instead his emotion led to upset obviously caused from the dissapointment and treatment from the police and the fact that the children could see what was going on. The fact is these cops harassed, bullied, threatened, assaulted, and falsely imprisoned the guy. Everytime i see a video like this i wonder why no one helps, you maybe arrested for helping, but atleast you helped, and if everyone started to help all the time, then things would change, if people starting appearing in court for defending someone from the police things would change because this happens on a daily basis, I mean, the guy was crying for help, how sad is a life of a cop that they need to feed from the sound of a desperate man whos done nothing wrong. I understand people wont help because if they do they fear being arrested because when another cop arrives to the scene and see’s the public restraining another copper, that cop arrivin on the scene is assumed to defend his colleague without question and will act forcefully, we assume like the police do now, so someone should be ready to aim a gun at any police attending the site to protect any public members because we all know cops are killers and thats the sad reality that we need to defend ourselves from cops. In all honesty, the female officer should have been restrained and put into a choke hold untill she passed out and then cuffed with her face in the dirt, the male officer should have been restrained and tasered whilst handcuffed just incase he decided to try and run away we assume, and then they should stick them both in jail with all the felons or so called felons they have had locked up in there so called career time for the extra added sentence of karma. They release him with no charge in the end, no charge means there was no reason to arrest this guy, which proves that the police are bullying people without a single care, this should have stopped yesterday. They never killed this guy whilst choke holding him, they never gave him brain damage when they accidently tasered his skull, but they treated him the same as they treated the girl they did cause brain damage to from tasers, and they treated him the same way they did to the guy the choked to death, there animals, they shouldnt be allowed to carry guns, they shouldnt be allowed to operate a pencil without fear of hurting someone.
The government have no right to tell us to do anything at all on this planet let alone were we can sit, its not there planet, our life is not theres to control, they want to control everyone and have spent many many years building up a system in which they can, but bottom line is they have zero control on us, if we wanted we could start our own goverment, our own police force, our own presidence or royal family even though both are complete nonsense, there nothing, there desperate people desperate to control, we give it to them because they offer us a form of life, a life they designed for us that we are now used to, but its never to late to change, if they aim a gun at you, aim one back, they dont have any more right to do anything, they fabricated everything, you know your birth certificate says owned by the government, thats because they want to be able to control your life via contract being your name, its kinda sad really, that a government, gang, firm, building of bullies, are picking on you at your weakest moment, as a child, pathetic….
well said. No one can rule a planet, or tell someone what to do. Everyone has right to do anything they want as long as they are not bothering someone else, nor anything illegal, otherwise its a free society, and cops had better starting behaving and understand this.
Geez police nowaday are corrupt.america need the honest officers and they must not discriminate the black and white skin because bothh of them human,eat same food,have a same flesh. serriously the cop just want get promotion and the chief want cover up the embarassment
Another commentator hit the nail on the head. The only way to reduce this kind of behaviour from police is if other citizens calmly and decisively intervene in these situations.
If you see a fellow human being unduly harassed by these inhumane meglomanic cops people should stop to ask the police for an explanation of their actions en masse. After all it’s your children that have to witness this stuff day-to-day. The more often police get politely ‘harassed’ on the street to explain their actions in a civilised manner the less inclined they might be to step over a line.
that won’t work, ie Kelly Thomas case. Intervening even in a friendly manner will only escalate no matter how diplomatic, because with the cops its their way or none due to their arrogance. Of course trying to talk reason at first, since that you prove you tried. But almost always its either with physical force of intervening or leave the cops to continue their egregious acts, which means there is no solution when they have the resources and power.
Shouldn’t have been arguing when he knew he had drugs in his pocket.
Video makes me sick, I would have helped him!
well said. No one can rule a planet, or tell someone what to do. Everyone has right to it as long as they are not bothering someone else.
well said. No one can rule a planet, or tell someone what to do. Everyone has right to it as long as they are not bothering someone else. And cops better start understanding this.