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A policy officer in Philadelphia is being accused of deleting cell phone video of an arrest he made back in March. The officer’s body camera was rolling, and apparently shows him deleting footage of the arrest from the cell phone of the man who was being detained.
According to TMZ, Jacob Giddings was at a gas station when officers ran his truck’s plates and discovered an open warrant for his arrest. The officer, identified only as Officer Burnett in the police report, asked Giddings to get out of his vehicle but he “started to resist.” Burnett used force to get Giddings out of the vehicle, while Giddings was recording the encounter on his phone from inside the truck –– though that wasn’t mentioned in the police report.
Giddings lost his phone in the struggle with police officers and once he’s arrested, Burnett’s body camera shows the officer opening the phone and hitting a few buttons, though it’s not clear on the footage what he actually did on the phone. Giddings believes the officer deleted the video.
Officers found marijuana in Giddings’ vehicle and charged him with drug possession and resisting arrest. Giddings has since retained lawyers who told the outlet they would be suing the city’s police department for tampering with evidence and excessive force after Giddings was taken to the hospital for treatment of wounds he received on his wrists from the handcuffs.
Philadelphia Police said in a statement that the incident “is currently under investigation with our Internal Affairs Bureau. The officer involved has been placed on administrative duty status pending the outcome of the internal investigation.”
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