Dashcam video shows a police officer in Texas pulling over an elderly man and wrestling him to the ground. Reports say that the officer shot the man with a taser gun twice. The offence? Driving a vehicle with expired tags and to top it off, the vehicle was clearly marked with a sticker to exempt it from inspections, which the driver tried to explain but the officer did not listen or apparently understand the exemption.
The officer in the video is 23-year old Nathaniel Robinson. The 76-year-old man he tasered was Pete Vasquez who works as a mechanic at the auto dealership where the incident in the video took place.
The video shows Robinson pulling over Vasquez at Adam's Auto Mart in Victoria. Vasquez was driving a dealer owned car with stickers to indicate that it was exempt from inspection despite having expired tags.
Still, Robinson is seen trying to snatch a piece of paper out of Robinson's hand, which he refuses. The officer then uses excessive force to wrestle Robinson on to the ground, and out of frame of the dashcam.
He is heard shouting at Robinson to put his hands behind his back, but other sounds outside the car are barely audible over "The Underground King" by Drake playing on the police car radio, and pointing his yellow taser.
A witness to the incident then starts shouting at the officer. The original report reveals that the man was Larry Urich, a sales manager at the car lot.
"I told the officer, 'What in the hell are you doing?' This gentleman is 76 years old. The cop told me to stand back, but I didn't shut up. I told him he was a goddamned Nazi Stormtrooper," he said.
Other officers arrived on the scene and spoke with Vasquez who was taken to a local medical center. Ulrich followed the police car and stayed with Vasquez until he was released from custody two hours later.
"There should have been an ambulance called for this elderly gentleman. He should not have been handcuffed to go to the emergency room when he had not done anything wrong," he told reporters.
Officer Robinson has since been placed on administrative duty while the investigation is ongoing. It was reported that he went to Vasquez' home that evening to apologize. Still, he faces possible charges of official oppression, injury to elderly, aggravated assault and assault, according to District Attorney Stephen Tyler.
