‘I’m not resisting’: Audio captures Independence officer punching man during arrest

Video captured by a police car’s recording system provides more details of a 2020 arrest during which an Independence police officer punched a man twice outside a grocery store.

The man, who was experiencing a mental health crisis, spoke with officers before and after his arrest, which can be heard on the video obtained by The Star through a public records request.

The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office said Tuesday it planned to perform a review of the incident.

The officer’s actions and the video were brought to light last month when The Star reported that the City of Independence recently paid out a settlement of more than $82,000 for the man without a lawsuit being filed.

Details of arrest

The incident occurred on Feb. 1, 2020, when the man entered a Price Chopper store at 4201 South Noland Road and told a manager that someone was trying to kill him. The manager called police to report a disturbance.

On the police car’s video, an officer can be heard saying he and his colleagues have dealt with the man before. An officer tells the man: “No one’s looking for you.”

Another person said he spoke with the man’s mother by phone. She was concerned about his mental health, he said.

“Why’d she let him roam around then?” an officer asked.

An officer asked the man, who is Black, where he lives. Nowhere, he responded.

“Then why are you in Independence?” the officer asked.

The man asked the officers to call his mother. An officer responded by telling the man he is an adult. The man appeared to say he wanted paramedics, but an officer told him they had to clear him first because of his “past” with the police.

An officer then asked which hospital he wanted to go to, and when the man said Kansas City, the officer told him they were not a taxi service. After more back and forth, the man said he wanted to be taken to Centerpoint Medical Center.

Officers took the man outside. The Star is not naming him because he was in distress and allegedly was the victim of police brutality.

At one point, the man can be heard telling someone: “Don’t touch me.” Shortly after, an officer told him to back up.

“Back up now!” the officer yelled.

“You’re going to beat me up?” the man asked.

The man was told he was under arrest. He asked what for, and an officer responded that it was for interfering with police.

“I didn’t interfere with no police,” the man responded.

The man yelled for help as an officer told him to stop resisting. An altercation ensued. The man then said he was punched in the face and couldn’t breathe. An officer told him: “You’re talking, you’re breathing.”

“Wow,” the man said. “Can you get off me? I’m already cuffed, sir. I’m not resisting.”

Punch captured on video

Nearby surveillance footage showed one of the officers, David Wehlermann, strike the man twice while arresting him. The first strike appeared targeted to the man’s chest and the second at his face.

After he was placed into the squad car, the man repeatedly told an officer to not hurt him. An officer put on the man’s seat belt. Once the officer closed the door, the man looked around and appeared to say something about officers beating him up, according to nearly 24-minute video footage from inside the car.

“You see that, right?” the man said to himself. “Oh my god. Please don’t hurt me. Oh my god. He f------ me up.”

“Damn,” he continued, “the f------ police f----- me up. ... He socked me in my face.”

He later said he believed the police were trying to kill him.

As an officer pulled away from the store, he told the man he needed “psychiatric help.”

“No one’s looking for you,” the officer said. “No one cares.”

The man was given a municipal citation for interference.

Prosecutor review

The Jackson County prosecutors’ use of force committee could review the case in the future, but an initial review will occur first, spokesman Mike Mansur said in an email Tuesday.

Lora McDonald, executive director of MORE2, a local social justice organization, said she hoped prosecutors treat their review seriously. The officer appeared to punch the man for no reason related to public safety in broad daylight, she said.

“This is an assault, plain and simple,” McDonald said.

In a police report Wehlermann, the officer who punched in the man, wrote that the man refused to follow the officers’ commands. Wehlermann wrote that he “grasped” the man’s arm and “escorted him to the ground.”

He did not mention the strikes.

Policing and accountability experts have told The Star that punching someone in the face to gain control of them during an arrest was generally not appropriate.

“The use of force is both a particularly contentious aspect of policing and an exceptionally important component of police-community relations,” said Seth W. Stoughton, a former Florida police officer who teaches law at the University of South Carolina.

Lauren Bonds, legal director for the National Police Accountability Project, said last month that the legal settlement amount was “a pretty sizable settlement for what the officer described as a controlled takedown.”

The Independence Police Department previously has not responded to questions about the incident, the settlement or the employment status of the officers. The department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Independence Mayor Eileen Weir’s office previously also did not respond to a request for comment about the settlement.

The city has paid out several large settlements and legal judgments for incidents involving its police.

In 2018, a jury awarded a man $6.5 million after he was nearly killed when an Independence police officer used a Taser on him.