A Black man who was arrested while walking home from work during last week’s snowstorm in Texas has had a misdemeanor charge against him dismissed.
Rodney Reese, 18, was charged Feb. 16 with being a pedestrian in the roadway in Plano.
His encounter with two Plano Police officers was captured on body camera footage which the department posted to Facebook last Friday.
Officers approached Reese after responding to a call about a Black man reportedly stumbling in the middle of a residential street. The deputies had been dispatched to perform a wellness check, reports said.
The video picked up with patrolmen arriving and following Reese, repeatedly asking if he was OK and where he was going. Still walking, Reese refused to comply with the officers, saying he was fine and on his way home.
Reese later told news station KDFW-TV that he had just left work at a nearby Walmart and refused to stop for the officers because he didn’t need their assistance.
Rodney Reese — an 18-year old black man — was arrested for walking in the street during the #TexasFreeze, last week. He had just finished his shift at Walmart. He was walking home — with groceries in hand. He didn’t make it. He spent the night in jail. More on @FOX4 at 9. https://t.co/WnDFOZgszj pic.twitter.com/TTJBrwlUWd
— David Sentendrey (@DavidSFOX4) February 22, 2021
The deputies, however, stayed behind Reese for about two minutes before ordering him to stop, saying he was being detained for further investigation. One of the officers can be heard at one point asking Reese if he needed a ride home, saying they were only trying to help him.
Reese said “no” to their commands and kept walking. That’s when the officers stopped Reese again and attempted to handcuff him. A brief scuffle ensued in which Reese pleaded for his release.
One of the officers said Reese was not charged with resisting arrest, according to the department’s Facebook post. Reports said Reese was carrying a bag of groceries home but wound up spending the night in jail.
The misdemeanor charge that was ultimately filed against Reese was later dropped because the man’s arrest wasn’t consistent with the reason officers were called, according to Plano Police Chief Ed Drain.
Drain acknowledged the situation should have gone differently but still defended the actions of the officers, saying they knew nothing about Reese, including his age, where he worked or where he lived.
“They should’ve taken him home, is where he should’ve gone,” Drain said, adding that he didn’t believe racial profiling was a factor in the arrest, but that the original call to report the man had been based on the color of the man’s skin.
