Jury mostly backs Virginia police sued by soldier over a traffic stop

TL;DR

Video of the 2020 incident in the small town of Windsor got millions of views after Caron Nazario filed the federal lawsuit, highlighting fears of mistreatment among Black drivers and raising questions about reasonable police conduct.The jury also awarded Nazario $1,000 in punitive damages after Windsor police officer Daniel Crocker illegally searched Nazario’s SUV, the attorneys said.Video shows Crocker and Gutierrez pointing handguns at a uniformed Nazario behind the wheel of his Chevy Tahoe at a gas station.A psychologist also found that Nazario, who is Black and Latino, suffers from race-based trauma associated with violent police encounters, which can exacerbate injuries “in ways that do not commonly affect the white populations.”Crocker is still on the force, but Gutierrez was fired in April 2021, the same month Nazario filed his lawsuit.Young ruled last year that federal immunity laws shielded Crocker and Gutierrez from Nazario’s claims that they violated his constitutional protections against excessive force and unreasonable seizure, as well as Nazario’s right to free speech by threatening him with arrest if he complained about their behavior."

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