A man in a now-viral video of a February traffic stop in Jacksonville, Florida, in which the officers smash his car window and punch him in the head, has hired civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels.
On Sunday, the civil rights attorneys announced that 22-year-old William McNeil Jr., who has since been identified as the man in the video, has retained them to represent him in his case against the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, First Coast News reported. The update arrives as more details surrounding the traffic stop and what led it to escalate have also emerged.
“The newly obtained JSO police report on William McNeil Jr.’s violent traffic stop claims he was verbally combative & reached for a knife — and doesn’t mention him being punched in the face while in the car. But video shows him calm and showing his hands,” Crump wrote in a post on X.
According to initial police reports obtained by First Coast News, McNeil was pulled over around 4:17 p.m. local time on Feb. 19 after he was observed driving with his headlights and taillights off in inclement weather. The officer also indicated that McNeil wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. When the officer pulled him over, according to him, McNeil “quickly” opened his door and became verbally combative. After learning why he was pulled over, he asked for a supervisor before closing and locking the door. The officer called for backup before also saying he was arresting McNeil for not complying.
Officers claim they administered “several warnings” before breaking his window at that point. However, their report does not fully mention what happens next, according to the video footage that has surfaced.
In the video, McNeil, with his seatbelt on, sits calmly in the driver’s seat of his car, his hands visible to the officers. He attempts to explain his side of the story to the backup officers, asks for clarity regarding if the headlight law applied in this instance, and notes his window doesn’t work, which is why he had to open his door. It also does not appear in the video that the officers give him any direct warnings. They can be heard discussing breaking the window, with one telling the other, “Go for it.”
They then break his window before one punches him in the head. He is then pulled from the car as a physical struggle ensues, in which he receives more punches. According to the report, at this point in the encounter, officers claimed McNeil was “reaching for the floorboard of the [car] where a large knife was sitting” as multiple officers removed him from the car. McNeil was eventually placed in handcuffs and arrested, complaining that his tooth was chipped— the officers did observe blood on his mouth.
Around three and a half grams of marijuana were removed from the car along with drug paraphernalia and the knife. There’s no mention of the specific force used against McNeil, and no mention of officers using force on McNeil while he was still in the car.
The video shows McNeil not only being punched in the head while he was still in the car, as he remained non-combative, but also at least one more time once he was pulled from the vehicle.
Since Crump and Daniels released the video on Sunday, it has garnered thousands of views and shares, and McNeil’s story has begun to trend online. In a statement addressing the video, the JSO said it had launched an internal investigation into McNeil’s arrest.
In the aftermath of the arrest, People magazine reported McNeil was left needing stitches according to his attorneys, “adjudicated guilty” of resisting an officer without violence and driving with a suspended license; meanwhile, the citations for not complying with the seatbelt laws and driving without his lights on were dismissed.
“It should be obvious to anyone watching this video that William McNeil wasn’t a threat to anyone,” Crump told First Coast News. “He was calmly exercising his constitutional rights and they beat him for it.”
Daniels noted that while “disgusted,” he wasn’t surprised because the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has “a long history of this kind of needless violence and brutality.”
