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“Do not put the phone in my face!” one officer, identified as “Gonzalez,” shouts in the second of two clips posted online. The cop then swats the phone from Williams’ hand, and it lands with its camera facing skyward. The recording captures multiple MPD officers grabbing Williams from all sides.

“Oh my god!” Williams shouts. The cops then shout at him to “stop resisting,” to which Williams repeatedly screams that he is not resisting and can’t breathe.

According to an arrest report obtained by New Times, the three officers arrived on scene after Williams’ ex-girlfriend asked for assistance in removing some items from their house. The cops do not state in their arrest documents that Williams acted violent toward them — instead, an officer listed as W. Gonzalez stated that he arrested Williams simply for getting too close to him with his cell phone.

“The defendant then continued to place his cellphone within very close proximity of my face, once again breaching the distance within my reactionary gap, at which point I advised the defendant that he was under arrest, at which point I grabbed the defendant by the arm and attempted to directed [sic] him to the ground to effect the arrest,” Gonzalez wrote. Gonzalez further alleged that Williams continued to tense his body and that he only entered a police vehicle “after another struggle.”

Williams is now charged with disorderly conduct and resisting an officer without violence, both misdemeanor charges.

Reached via phone, Williams told New Times that when he arrived on the scene, the officers prevented him from entering his apartment without explaining much about why. After the officers told him to move across the street, he said he was confused why the trio then followed him to the other sidewalk. Once the cops swatted his phone away, he said he was stunned that his phone wound up catching more of the incident by accident.

”I was shocked my phone even picked up the part after they knocked it out of my hand,” he said last night. “I only got my phone back after I got out of jail. I didn’t think my phone caught all that.”

Williams says that, once the cops pinned him on the ground, they repeatedly punched him in the head. He said he felt like he was experiencing concussion symptoms and still has scrapes and bruises on his face and hands this week.

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