Army Officer Should Have Complied 'A Whole Lot Earlier': VA Chief

WINDSOR, VA — The local NAACP branch where an Army officer was pepper sprayed by police is calling for the immediate resignation of the police chief of Windsor, Virginia, after watching a news conference Wednesday where the police chief said the Army officer should have complied with police orders.

The Isle of Wight Branch NAACP said it was “appalled at some of the statements made by the Town officials as well as the Chief of Police” at the news conference.

“Therefore, we are calling for the immediate resignation of Chief Rodney Riddle,” the NAACP branch said Wednesday in a Facebook post.

U.S. Army Second Lieutenant Caron Nazario was pulled over and threatened by two police officers in Windsor on Dec. 5, 2020. Nazario, who is Black and Latino, was still in his full Army uniform when pulled over.

Nazario said his rights were violated, as video shows the police officers, identified in a lawsuit filed by Nazario as Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker, pepper spray him while his hands were in the air.

Video of the incident went widespread on social media last weekend, leading the Windsor police to fire one of the police officers almost four months after the incident.

Windsor, a town of about 2,600 people, is located in Isle of Wight County, which is part of the Hampton Roads area.

At the news conference, Riddle said Nazario took actions that worsened the traffic stop. “I wish he would’ve complied a whole lot earlier,” Riddle said.

While other experts believe Nazario handled the situation appropriately for his safety and the safety of the police officers by driving less than a mile at a low speed to a well-lit gas station, Riddle said there were other places where Nazario could have pulled over before the gas station.

Riddle also said Nazario made a left turn across a four-lane road to turn into the gas station, which raised concerns for the two police officers.

Riddle said the town’s small police department launched an internal investigation on Dec. 8. After the investigation ended on Jan. 28, disciplinary action was taken against Gutierrez.

But it was not until the video of the incident went viral that Gutierrez was fired. “I lost faith” in his ability to serve the community to the standards expected, the chief said.

“We’re 2,600 people. We know just about everybody here,” Riddle said. “That’s why we have good relations within the community itself."

“That was destroyed by the social media posting, the media coverage of it,” the police chief said. “There was no way in my mind that he could engage in this community in an effective manner beyond that day.”

Nazario has a family connection to Eric Garner, a Black man killed by police in New York City in July 2014. “Mr. Garner was Mr. Nazario’s relative via marriage whom Mr. Nazario considered as his uncle," Nazario's lawyer said in a statement, as reported by WRIC. "As far as watching Mr. Garner be murdered, we all saw that repetitively on the television and social media."

Riddle said Nazario’s attorney received copies of the bodycam video in mid-December and that the police department was not trying to hide anything about the incident.

Thomas H. Roberts, Nazario's attorney, said his law firm attached the videos as exhibits to a complaint that the firm recently filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk. A reporter with the Virginian-Pilot learned about the lawsuit and covered the incident, which led to the videos going viral over the weekend.

"A reporter from the Pilot caught wind of the suit. That ignited the flame," Roberts said in an email to Patch.

Roberts' law firm, Richmond-based Thomas H Roberts and Associates PC, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds to pay for Nazario's legal fees and to help other people who find themselves in similar situations as Nazario did in December.

Riddle said the other police officer involved in the incident, Daniel Crocker, had recently graduated from police academy and that he has confidence Crocker will become a good police officer. The department has no plans to fire Crocker, he said.

As for the status of Riddle, Windsor Town Manager William Saunders and the town council have expressed their support for the police chief.

Riddle said when he started as Windsor police chief in 2015, he had a "train wreck on my hands." The seven-person police department has made great strides since he became police chief, he said.

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