Ex-NFL Player Slammed, Choked By Police: Video

MCDONOUGH, GA — A former NFL cornerback posted a video on Thursday in which he is slammed and choked by police officers in Henry County, south of Atlanta, because, according to him, they thought his cellphone was a handgun.

"I thought I was going to die," Desmond Marrow wrote in a Facebook post shared Thursday afternoon. "I was sure I was passing out or dying when [an officer] was choking me as my breath kept slipping away."

In the video, two Henry County Police officers slam Marrow into the back of a pickup truck, then onto the ground. As they do, one of them threatens to use a taser on Marrow. Marrow can be heard repeatedly saying, "I'm not even fighting back," as they force him to the ground.

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McDonough, the seat of Henry County, is about 35 miles south of Atlanta along Interstate 75.

On the ground, Marrow appears to be crying as he shouts, "I didn't even do nothing to y'all!" and, as he begins to shout something else, one of the officers grabs him by the throat and holds it.

"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!," Marrow shouts, until the officer eventually takes his hand off of Marrow's throat.

On Facebook, Marrow writes that he had teeth knocked out in the incident and that officers "choked me out until I was unconscious." In the video, he appears unresponsive after the officer removes his hand from Marrow's throat. The video ends abruptly after that.

A spokeswoman for Henry County did not immediately reply to a message from Patch seeking comment for this story Friday morning.

Marrow, is a native of Youngstown, Ohio, who played college football at University of Toledo. He played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012. He appeared in two pre-season games and did not compile any regular-season statistics, according to NFL.com.

In the Facebook post, he wrote that he has been working as an athletic trainer.

On Facebook, Marrow said he also suffered a shoulder strain and a concussion. He says he did not have a weapon, only his cellphone, but that the officers "claimed to be scared for their lives."

He says he was put in isolation and labeled a gang member because of his tattoos, but that when officers learned he was a former NFL player and that there was a video of his arrest they tried to drop the charges.

"They were basically trying to get me to sell my soul in exchange for the video not being posted and they would drop all the felonies and clear my record," he wrote.

It was unclear what, if any, charges Marrow faces after the incident and his incarceration status. An inmate search for "Desmond Marrow" on the Henry County Sheriff's Office website yielded no results Friday morning.

Watch video of the incident posted to Facebook and YouTube below:

Photo via YouTube