Police body camera video shows an Alabama high school band director being shocked with a stun gun and arrested by officers in front of screaming students, in a chaotic fight that broke out after he refused to stop immediately to the band while playing in the stands after a football game.
State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, who is defending band director Johnny Mims as an attorney, said Tuesday that the incident is an “alarming abuse of power.”
The Birmingham Police Department says the incident remains under investigation, but says the band director resisted arrest and allegedly shoved an officer.
The altercation broke out after last Thursday’s game between Minor and Jackson-Olin high schools. In the video — captured on police body camera Monday night — officers are seen approaching Mims, the band director at Minor, as the band plays in the stands.
They ask him several times to stop the band and clear the stadium. Mims continues to lead the band and confirms to them that “this is his last song.” At the police’s insistence, on more than one occasion the director tells them “get out of my sight.” As the music continues, one officer tells Mims that he is going to jail, and another says that he will contact the school. Mims gives two thumbs up and says, “That’s good.” “Handcuff him,” an officer is later heard saying.
The video shows the band played for about two minutes after officers approached Mims. After the music stops, the video shows officers apparently trying to arrest him, amid an avalanche of bodies. One says Mims assaulted an officer and should go to jail, and Mims denies doing so. An officer then shocks Mims with a stun gun. Students (more than 140 were present, according to Givan) can be heard shouting into the night as the arrest unfolds.
Police said in a statement Friday that Mims refused to put his hands behind his back and the arresting officer said the band director shoved him, leading to the use of the stun gun. Givan said Tuesday that he’s not going to debate “whether my client was right or wrong,” but he said the officers “should never have pulled out their Taser.”
Givan, who graduated from Minor High School, said Birmingham has a high homicide rate “and yet you have law enforcement officers in a damn child’s game excessively attacking my client and abusing him in front of the children.”
Officer Truman Fitzgerald, a department spokesman, said Mims was charged with disorderly conduct, physical harassment and resisting arrest. The police chief met with the mayor and superintendents of the two school systems, Fitzgerald said. Also on Tuesday, the city’s Mayor, Randall L. Woodfin, announced the formation of a civilian-led Public Safety Advisory Committee, although his office said it had been in development for some time and was not related to the incident in the soccer match.
