Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Thecontroversial traffic stop of a motorist who refused to open his car door or window to Jacksonville sheriff’s deputies stemmed in part from the department’s vague use-of-force policy, which gives individual officers broad discretion to use violence at the first sign of resistance, according to experts who spoke with The Tributary.
Those experts also unanimously agreed that Officer Donald Bowers should have reported his hit to the face of William McNeil Jr. after he smashed the car’s window to drag McNeil out of the car. That open-handed hit was not disclosed in either the police report or response-to-resistance report Bowers completed after McNeil’s arrest.
Video of McNeil Jr.’s traffic stop in February and arrest went viral this summer, after McNeil released footage taken from his cellphone, which was mounted on his dashboard…