The union representing five Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies involved in the May 23 arrest of a Black man in Ooltewah stepped forward Thursday to say the officers did not beat the man.
Union leaders called the district attorney’s decision to release dashboard camera footage an attempt to “pollute the jury.”
The video shows the deputies – Sgt. Mickey Rountree, Cpl. Brian Killingsworth and deputies Nick Dewey, Todd Cook and Lori Choate – striking 32-year-old Reginald Arrington Jr. with batons.
For five-and-a-quarter minutes, the deputies – all white – struck Arrington and held him to the ground, the video shows. They had been called to the area by a neighbor who told deputies that a Black man in a blue jumpsuit was acting suspiciously, walking up to women and “asking them questions and asked her how to get out of the neighborhood,” court records state.
Officers reported they saw the man walking south on Old Lee Highway “in violation of the pedestrian on roadway law,” which is what precipitated the arrest.