Deontae Faison, a 35-year Black father of two, was trying to enjoy a picnic at the park in Oakland with a friend when he was confronted by police over expired tags on the car they had arrived in.
The car belonged to his friend, a white woman, but East Bay Regional Parks police officer Jonathan Knea focused his attention on Faison despite having never seen him driving the car into the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline on April 5, according to a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month.
Believing he was being unfairly targeted, Faison provided police with an alias. But when cops were unable to find that name in their system, they threatened to bring a fingerprint technician to the scene in order to properly identify and check him for warrants.
Meanwhile, the white woman who owned the car was never questioned if she owned the car and never had her name checked for warrants and was never threatened with having her fingerprints taken.
After 20 minutes of being detained and questioned, more cops arrived and Faison panicked, especially after Knea pulled out a gun and threatened to shoot him so he ran toward a body of water, prompting Knea to chase after him and taser him in the back.