Footage of a February 19 police beating of 22-year-old William Anthony McNeil Jr., a Black motorist and college student in Jacksonville, Florida, surfaced on social media in recent weeks, prompting calls for justice from civil rights attorneys and activists. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) released the deputy body camera footage as part of its attempted damage control.
In the video posted by McNeil to social media, his hands are up and visible as the gang of officers break his window and drag him from his vehicle, punching him in the face several times in the process, then held him down by his head and handcuffed him as he bled from the face.
McNeil’s posted video is accompanied by the text, “This is America… and it’s appalling”.
In the body camera video from the JSO, McNeil asks a deputy the reason for the traffic stop; he said it was because McNeil had his headlights off, and he was not wearing a seatbelt. Online comments have noted the deputies’ lights were also not on in the bodycam video. McNeil stated that it is day time and not raining, which can be seen in the released footage. McNeil then asked to speak with supervisors about why he was stopped before and after closing his car door. The officer can be heard ordering McNeil to exit the vehicle and saying that he was under arrest for resisting.
A segment of body cam footage highlighted by McNeil’s attorneys at a Chicago press conference on July 29 shows one of the officers pointing a handgun at McNeil during his arrest. At the press conference, the attorneys criticized JSO for releasing only select body camera footage. McNeil’s attorneys have called for the officers involved to be fired and to have charges brought against them, and for McNeil’s charges to be dropped.
Court records show McNeil was sentenced to and served two days in jail for resisting arrest without violence and driving with a suspended license.
The JSO suspended Deputy D.J. Bowers, who punched McNeil in the face, pending a review of the incident, only for the State Attorney to conclude on July 21 the actions were not criminal.
McNeil’s case is not an isolated incident, but a key feature of police terror to maintain control and facilitate exploitation of the working class through racist intimidation and violence. JSO officers badly beat a young black man in a 2023 police attack during a traffic stop. Josue Garriga, one of the officers in the 2023 beating, had previously shot and killed Jamee Johnson, a Black university student at a traffic stop in 2019. The officers faced no charges for either incident, though Garriga was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2024 for sexually exploiting a teenage girl.
At the July 29 press conference, McNeil’s attorney said that of the 78 people cited by JSO for driving without headlights in the last three years, 63 were black, while Jacksonville’s population is 15 percent black.
Image: A still from McNeil’s video of the February police attack posted to social media
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