Criminal charges against a University of Virginia student who was injured in a violent arrest at a bar in March are to be dropped on Friday morning, the Guardian has learned.
Martese Johnson’s arrest was filmed on another student’s cellphone, after Johnson was stopped by alcohol beverage control (ABC) agents on 17 March. Blood poured down his face while officers handcuffed him as he lay prone.
The footage, which showed Johnson yelling to the officers as they restrained him that he attended the university and that they were being racist, went viral.
The decision by the prosecution to drop the charges was confirmed by Johnson’s lawyer Daniel Watkins on Thursday evening.
“I spoke with the commonwealth’s attorney for Charlottesville this morning and he informed me that his office was not interested in pursuing the charges against Martese Johnson.
“It has been our position all along that the Virginia ABC officers were not justified in their treatment of Mr Johnson. When I notified him, he was truly ecstatic. His future remains bright and he looks forward to moving on with his life now that this matter has been resolved.”
Johnson is black and the officers who arrested him are white. The incident became part of the national debate on race and the use of force by the police, whichhas been raging since an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, was shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.
Hundreds of students protested on campus, drawing comment from the college president, Teresa Sullivan, and the Virginia governor, Terry McAuliffe, ordered a review and retraining for state alcohol enforcement officers.
Johnson, who was underage, was detained after a dispute about whether he used a fake ID to get into a bar on a strip opposite the UVA campus in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident was considered unusual, despite a boisterous bar life off campus.
The 17-year-old was handcuffed and shackled at the ankles and bundled into a police van. He was later taken to hospital, where he had stitches and staples put in a deep gash in his head and was treated for cuts and bruises to his head and face.
He was charged with public drunkenness and obstruction of justice and appeared in court later that month.
On Friday morning he is due in court with his lawyer, Daniel Watkins of the law firm Williams Mullen, based in Richmond, Virginia. The prosecution is expected to announce that it will no longer pursue the charges.
A spokesman for McAuliffe said the governor’s review of the ABC agency was ongoing.
