Va. town settles lawsuit following stop of Army officer that went viral
A small Virginia police force will have to obtain accreditation and subject its officers to more scrutiny under the terms of a settlement to resolve a lawsuit brought by the state’s attorney general after a 2020 traffic stop of a Black and Latino Army officer generated nationwide controversy.
Then-Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring sued the town of Windsor in 2021, alleging that its police force discriminated against Black people and violated their civil rights. The suit came after a video of 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario being stopped at gunpoint and pepper-sprayed by a Windsor officer went viral.
Windsor, which is in the Hampton Roads area, did not admit wrongdoing under the terms of the deal it reached this week with Herring’s successor, Jason S. Miyares. But its police department agreed to get certified by a professional-standards commission and have any complaints about use-of-force incidents reviewed by a state prosecutor and forwarded to the attorney general’s office.
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Miyares called the settlement “firm but fair.”
“I think like … so many Americans, I was shocked by the traffic stop involving Lieutenant Nazario,” Miyares said. “That was an egregious and unjust use of power, but I will say this: No one dislikes bad police misconduct more than good police.”
The town said in a statement that Herring obtained data that showed Windsor did not have a pattern of racist policing. The statement said officers used force on people 20 times over a period of eight years, including in six incidents involving Black people. Only one complaint was validated, the town said.
Herring’s office said at the time the lawsuit was filed that it had reviewed 14 months of traffic stops by Windsor’s force that showed 42 percent were of Black drivers, 200 to 500 percent more than would be expected, given the number of people of color in the town.
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“The Town of Windsor has worked diligently within its police force to enhance training, improve policies and procedures, and ensure the public that its law enforcement operates without prejudice and within the law,” the town said in a statement.
Jonathan Arthur, an attorney for Nazario, said in an interview that his client appreciated the work the attorney general’s office had done on the case.
“The AG’s attorneys understood the gravity of what happened,” Arthur said. “They forced the Windsor police to take steps that won’t help my client but will help other citizens of Virginia.”
The video of Nazario’s stop on Dec. 5, 2020, shows him holding his hands out of the window of his newly purchased SUV during a traffic stop at a gas station. A lawsuit Nazario filed claimed he was stopped because he didn’t have a rear license plate, but officers did not notice a temporary tag in his back window.
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The video shows a pair of Windsor officers, with their guns drawn, yelling at Nazario to exit his vehicle. He asks the officers what is happening. At that point, Officer Joe Gutierrez tells Nazario that he is “fixing to ride the lightning, son.”
Eventually, the video shows Gutierrez pepper-spraying Nazario and handcuffing him after Nazario leaves his vehicle.
Nazario sued Gutierrez and the second officer, Daniel Crocker, seeking $1 million in federal court. But a jury awarded him less than $4,000 in January. Nazario has appealed that ruling, and the case is pending.
Gutierrez and Crocker were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in the case, but Gutierrez was fired from the Windsor police force. Crocker remains employed as an officer in Windsor.
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