Bodycam footage from a police officer in Edgewater, Florida, has recently gone viral on TikTok after outraged viewers watched the cop arrest a man who had just finished his shift at the local CVS and was waiting for his ride home.
Unfortunately abuse of power is something that happens with some cops. The full bodycam footage has made its way to TikTok and it shows the police officer approaching the employee named Paul after spotting him sitting outside the CVS store. The officer accuses the man of trying to hide from him, telling him, “I see you sitting there and all of a sudden I’m pulling up and you’re hiding behind the pillars of a closed business.”
The officer ignores Paul’s perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he was sitting outside the closed CVS and at one point even threatens to tase him despite Paul having committed no crime. Paul, who has done no wrong, isn’t overly cooperative with the cop which only further angers him leading to the officer deciding to arrest him for resisting arrest.
Even when the employee’s Lyft shows up to drive him home the officer refuses to acknowledge the truth.
What happened next?
The footage ends with the officer calling the police chief to the scene at which point the arresting officer admitted that he believed Paul did indeed work at the CVS but that the employee’s attitude was what led him to make the decision to arrest him. In the video it’s clear that Paul wasn’t even giving the officer much in the way of attitude, he was simply a tired employee who had just finished a late shift and wanted to go home.
So apparently being a little grumpy when talking to police officers is now a crime. According to the Daytona Beach News Journal, Paul spent almost three days in jail after his arrest. Comments on TikTok also claimed that he lost his job at CVS thanks to the officer’s actions.
However, it’s not all bad as Paul’s grandfather is a retired police captain who wasn’t going to let his grandson be bullied by a power-tripping cop. Almost a month after the initial incident the State Attorney’s Office filed papers stating it will not act on the charges against Paul. As for the officer, he was named as Daniel Rippeon, and he was placed on administrative leave.
The netizens of TikTok want justice for Paul
There haven’t been many updates since but many on TikTok were less than satisfied with the outcome with one commenter predicting that Rippeon will be rehired as a cop elsewhere. Others assumed that Paul likely got a nice payout for being put through such a stressful ordeal with one viewer commencing “so this kid is a millionaire now?”
A comment from “Paulvaskez” claims to be the Paul from the video, he gave viewers a little update, stating, “I actually sued and got a big bag. The case took 3 months and he later got fired. Thanks for the comments lol, this is still funny and weird to me.” Whether or not this is the real Paul is difficult to verify, but we can only hope this is true.
