CHICAGO — Civil rights attorneys stood beside 22-year-old William McNeil Jr., the man seen in a now-viral Jacksonville traffic stop arrest, for a news conference in Chicago Tuesday morning, renewing calls for justice in the incident, which they say began with racial profiling. 

At the news conference held during the 100th annual celebration of the National Bar Association, civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels held a poster of what they said was a new image from bodycam footage they say shows an officer holding McNeil at gunpoint during the incident.

JSO said the image comes from video released July 21 during Sheriff T.K. Waters’ press conference. 

“That day I was telling the truth,” McNeil said softly. “From the evidence in the picture, I was being held at gunpoint, and I didn’t feel safe.”

McNeil, who was pulled over Feb. 19 in Jacksonville for an alleged headlight and seatbelt violation, pleaded guilty the day after his arrest to driving on a suspended license and resisting an officer without violence. The traffic-related charges for which McNeil was initially pulled over were dropped.

Now-viral cellphone video of his arrest shows Jacksonville Sheriff’s officer Donald Bowers shatter McNeil’s vehicle window and punch him in the face, before he is pulled from his car and forced to the ground by multiple officers. Bowers’ initial punch was not documented in the police report of the incident.

Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters released bodycam footage of the incident shortly after McNeil’s cellphone video went viral. Now, McNeil’s attorneys claim the sheriff’s office purposely didn’t release the bodycam of the officer who appears to be holding McNeil at gunpoint during the traffic stop.

“We know there are other videos that exist,” Crump said, “that we do not have.” 

A JSO spokesperson said in a statement the image shown in Crump’s press conference was a short snippet from the body-worn camera video released by JSO on July 21.

“JSO made the video available during a news conference, on our social media accounts, and through our public transparency portal,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The video the attorneys released today has been publicly accessible since July 21, as evidenced by the JSO badge and captions.”

McNeil’s attorneys said they plan to file a federal civil rights lawsuit over McNeil’s arrest and also challenge his conviction. 

“[We’re] pursuing justice to secure his freedom, because no way he should have been charged with a crime, because let me be very clear – the stop was unconstitutional from the beginning,” Daniels said. “It wasn’t just pretexual, it was racial profiling and unlawful and he suffered a beating that nobody should suffer.”

Attorneys also said they want to seek criminal charges against the officer involved and possibly the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, which they claim allows its officers to continue using a pattern of excessive force against Black citizens.

Waters has contended McNeil’s traffic stop was not racially motivated. The officers involved have been cleared of all criminal wrongdoing by the State Attorney’s Office, and an internal investigation into whether the officers violated JSO policy is ongoing.

McNeil’s attorneys also revealed during the news conference that after his arrest, he was diagnosed with a brain injury. The next day, they said McNeil entered his plea of guilty.

“How can he enter into a plea when he has a closed head injury?” Daniels asked.

McNeil noted Tuesday that he hasn’t been the same since the injury, and said he’s still “traumatized.”

“I’m still afraid of police, still frightened at night,” he said. “I don’t sleep still as much as I used to.”

Civil rights attorney John Burris argued that McNeil making a plea shortly after his arrest is an uncommon practice.

“Rarely, if ever, a person who has been injured like this goes to court the next day and a plea of guilty is given…This is not done,” he said. Burris argued that the courts’ “rush to judgment” to have McNeil plead was to justify the officer’s conduct.

“To get him in the criminal justice system to take the heat off the police by them saying, ‘look, he pleaded guilty to something,’ but the truth of the matter is he had no counsel,” he said.

Burris even drew similarities between McNeil’s arrest and Rodney King’s 1991 police beating during a traffic stop in Los Angeles. Burris represented King in a civil lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department years after the incident.

“We saw Rodney King, you see this, but what you are really seeing is a continuation of almost 35 years of brutalities that does occur in police cases after the Black community,” Burris said. 

While attorneys said Tuesday they plan to seek several legal avenues for justice for McNeil, no legal filing has been formally made.

Crump, again, called for Bowers to be fired and warned that anything less would warrant legal action. 

“They should terminate this officer immediately,” he said. “And if they don’t, then that would be a basis for the litigation that attorney Daniels and I intend to file.”

You can read JSO’s full statement below:

“The video shared today by the attorneys for William McNeil Jr., showing officers conducting a traffic stop on February 19, is not new. It is merely a short snippet from the body-worn camera footage that JSO released last Monday, July 21.

JSO made the video available during a news conference, on our social media accounts, and through our public transparency portal. The video the attorneys released today has been publicly accessible since July 21, as evidenced by the JSO badge and captions.

Sheriff T.K. Waters has launched an Internal Affairs investigation into the officers’ actions. Officer D. Bowers remains relieved of law enforcement duties pending the completion of the investigation.

In light of Mr. McNeil Jr.’s public announcement that he has retained legal counsel, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office will not offer any further comment regarding the circumstances of his arrest.”