Police in Evansville, Indiana, are reviewing their ride-along policies after the son of an officer -- who was accompanying him for the evening -- attacked a man filming his dad making an arrest, reports the Courier-Press.
In the June 28 incident, Officer Bryan Underwood noticed he was being filmed as he was addressing a man lying in the back of a police cruiser at a gas station complaining that he had been shot in the stomach. Asking the cell phone user to step back and stop filming him, Underwood noticed the man was smoking a cigarette and criticized him, telling him it was dangerous to have a lit cigarette so close to the gas pumps.
The man flipped the lit cigarette to ground while continuing to film, leading Underwood to criticize him further before demanding his ID, saying he was going to write him up for littering. The man then retreated to his car, and an argument ensued with the filming man and a woman with him demanding Underwood's name while criticizing him for shooting the wounded man in the cruiser.
"You just shot him, you just shot him twice, he's in handcuffs," the man can be heard saying, to which Underwood replied, "I didn't do anything. Don't worry about me."
With the couple both demanding Underwood's name and badge number, the police officer gave them his business card before turning away.
At this point a man identified as Underwood's son, 21-year-old Brock, began arguing with the man filming the action over whether there was a shooting or not before snatching the cell phone away and trying to break it.
Evansville Police Chief Billy Bolin said what happened was unacceptable and that the department is reviewing its policies, but that he doesn't want to discourage family members from also becoming police officers.
"I don’t want to be knee-jerk,” explained Bolin. “Many family members decide to become police officers after a ride-along.”
Bolin banned Brock Underwood from ever participating in a ride-along again, before stating that Officer Underwood would undergo counseling on how he might better handle such situations in the future.
Watch the video below, uploaded to YouTube by LiveLeaks:
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