New video footage of a February arrest of NFL player Malik McDowell shows the 23-year-old fighting a police officer before and after getting Tased inside a gas station. In the footage, published by TMZ, the free agent athlete could be seen tussling with Lathrup Village police in Michigan after refusing to take orders from the officer.
McDowell was pulled over in front of a gas station for driving too fast and then spinning out in a snowstorm. In video taken from the officer’s dashboard camera, the officer ordered McDowell to stay seated in his car, but after repeatedly asking the officer to speak with a supervisor, McDowell leaves his vehicle and walks into the store.
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The officer then grabs McDowell and tells him to put his hands behind his back, but the footballer, who was selected by the Seattle Seahawks in the second round of the 2017 NFL Draft, begins to fight back against the officer, knocking over shelves of food in the process in surveillance camera footage from inside the store.
The two stumble around the convenient store for a few moments until McDowell sits next to the door, with the officer repeatedly warning him to lie down on his stomach or else he would be tased. The officer deploys his stun gun, at which point McDowell rips out the Taser prongs, stands up and again tussles with the officer, who does not match his physical stature and cannot get control of the defensive tackle.
The two wrestle around the store until backup officers eventually arrive and help take him into custody.
“Don’t shoot me,” McDowell tells the officer at one point. One of the backup officers who helped subdue McDowell wrote in a police report later that McDowell “grabbed for my gun as I was trying to grab his arm.”
He was eventually charged with two counts of felony assaulting and resisting, one misdemeanor count of operating while intoxicated and misdemeanor driving on a suspended license.
Although the results of a blood sample taken from McDowell were not included in the initial police report, TMZ later reported that the results showed McDowell had a blood alcohol level of .189, which is over two times the legal limit.
Another charge against him, receiving and concealing stolen property, stems from an investigation of pickup truck thefts from a Ford Motor Co. overflow lot in Dearborn, Michigan, Detroit News reports.
The trucks were equipped with GPS devices which led officers to a closed garage at McDowell’s Southfield address. He told police he did not know the truck was stolen and had purchased it from $3,000 from a Detroit man, whose name he said he did not know.
If convicted of the truck offense, McDowell could receive a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The felony assault/resisting arrest charge is punishable by up to two years in prison and fines, while the misdemeanor operating while intoxicated charge is a 93-day offense. However, because he has a February 2018 drunken driving conviction out of Royal Oak, Michigan, McDowell could receive an enhanced combined sentence of fine, jail time and community service.
The Seahawks sued McDowell in federal court in May, claiming he failed to pay back $799,238 ordered by an arbitrator after he suffered a head injury in an ATV accident in July 2017, an injury which kept him from playing a single snap in the NFL.
Photo credit: Mitchell Leff / Stringer / Getty
