NBA rookie Sterling Brown of the Milwaukee Bucks has announced that he plans to file a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Police Department after he was violently arrested in January.
Rumors of the incident have been circling for months, and the Bucks have already announced that body camera footage of the incident would be released on Wednesday.
It is clear from the braced responses from Milwaukee authorities that they are expecting intense backlash following the video’s release. The city’s Mayor Tom Barrett, for example, said on Monday that the video made him uncomfortable.
“I’m going to let the release of that speak for itself, but yes, I definitely have concerns after watching that video,” Barrett said at a news conference.
According to a police report, officers approached a car on an early January morning that was parked across two handicapped spaces at a Walgreens parking lot. A passenger told the officer that the driver was in the Walgreens, the officer wrote.
Brown came out and was confronted by the officers, who tased and violently arrested him. Police reports claim that Brown resisted arrest, but sources who have viewed the video say otherwise.
“This could be bad,” one source who watched the video told USA Today. “The player doesn’t appear to be provocative at all.”
The incident prompted an investigation and it is not clear if the officers involved were disciplined. Brown was cited for a parking violation, but his arrest did not lead to any charges after police authorities reviewed reports and body camera footage, the department said.
