Florida Cop Who Repeatedly Punched William McNeil Jr. Will Not Be Charged, Sheriff Says

Prosecutors in  Jacksonville, Florida, have already decided they will not charge the Jacksonville police officer who was seen on camera beating  22-year-old William McNeil Jr. after breaking the window of his vehicle and dragging him out on Feb. 19, nor will they charge any other officer involved in the stop.

According to The Washington Post, police are claiming in their report that before they busted McNeil’s window and forcibly removed him from his car, he reached towards his floorboard, where they later found an unsheathed knife.

So, there are a number of issues here, beginning with the most glaring contradiction to the police account of what happened: the video doesn’t show it.

In the footage taken from McNeil’s cell phone, which only recently went viral, McNeil is seen explaining to an officer off-camera that he is only questioning why he has been pulled over. The footage also shows the moment his window was broken and he was pulled out. What it does not show is any indication that he had reached for anything before that moment.

According to the Post, footage taken from police body camera also does not show McNeil reach towards the floor.

From the Post:

Footage from officers’ body cameras, as well as video from McNeil’s cellphone, shows what happened during the arrest: As an officer approached McNeil’s car, McNeil opened the door and looked out. The officer told him he was pulled over for not having his headlights on during “inclement weather” and not wearing a seat belt. McNeil responded that it was daylight and not raining.

When the officer asked to see McNeil’s license, registration and proof of insurance, McNeil told him to call the officer’s supervisor and asked again why he was pulled over. The officer radioed for backup and told McNeil to get out of the car. McNeil instead closed the door, the video shows.

The officer then told McNeil that he was under arrest for resisting. The longer McNeill took to comply, the officer said, “the worse it’s going to be.” The officer repeatedly ordered McNeil to get out of the car and warned that he otherwise would break a window, according to the video.

Another officer arrived and spoke with McNeil through the passenger-side window. McNeil again refused to get out of the car, the video shows.

Then the first officer smashed the driver-side window and struck McNeil across his face, according to the video. McNeil presented his hands when asked, lifting them a second time as officers pulled him out of the car, the video shows.

Multiple officers surrounded McNeil, and the first officer punched him in the face again as they pinned him to the ground, the footage shows. The officers told McNeil to “stop fighting” and put his hands behind his back as they handcuffed him.

The only thing this video makes clear is that a cop got really frustrated over a Black man’s refusal to exit his vehicle until he got a clear explanation as to why he was pulled over, and why he was being ordered out.

As we previously reported, Florida law states clearly that motorists must use their headlights “from sunset to sunrise, including twilight hours,” or “during any rain, smoke, or fog.” It’s clear that it is daytime when McNeil was stopped, and there are no obvious indicators of “inclement weather.” Granted, if McNeil, indeed, wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, that is cause for a citation — but not a violent arrest.

“William was calm and compliant,” civil attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels, who represent McNeil, said in a joint statement. “Yet instead of answers, he got his window smashed and was punched in the face, all over a questionable claim about headlights in broad daylight. This wasn’t law enforcement, it was brutality.”

Here’s another question: If the cops saw McNeil reach to his floorboard through a closed window, why respond by taking the time to break the window, punch the driver, and pull him out, as opposed to pulling their service weapons and ordering him to show his hands in case McNeil had been reaching for a gun, not a knife?

But, again, no video footage shows McNeil reaching for anything, and even the sheriff appears to acknowledge that.

Sheriff T.K. Waters — who made the announcement Monday that local prosecutors “have determined that none of the involved officers violated criminal law” — has argued that video footage of the stop doesn’t reveal the entire story.

“Moreover, cameras can only capture what can be seen and heard,” Waters said during a news conference Monday. “So much context and depth are absent from recorded footage because a camera simply cannot capture what is known to the people depicted in it.”

But the camera would show us if the person depicted in it, front and center, reached for something in the direction of his floorboard, would it not? That is a thing that “can be seen and heard,” isn’t it?

Mind you, we haven’t even gotten to the part where, even if the cops did see McNeil reach, it still wouldn’t justify the beating that happened after he was already out of the car.

And that’s the thing…

Look, we may be spectators on the outside looking in on this arrest, but for those of us who only saw and heard “what can be seen and heard” on camera, it really seems like the officers found this alleged knife after the fact and decided it would be the perfect excuse for their egregious act of police brutality if they claim he reached for it.

But Sheriff Waters, who is Black, doesn’t believe his officers were in the wrong, and he doesn’t appear to believe racism played a role in their behavior either, which is what he indicated during a town hall in Jacksonville Tuesday night.

From First Coast News:

With the newly released bodycam footage and McNeil’s viral video, Waters told First Coast News he was expecting citizens at Tuesday night’s town hall to have questions about the incident.

“We’re not running away from any of this stuff, this is about informing the public and letting people know what we’re doing in the agency,” said Waters. “Reasonable people, logical people that see an entire incident from beginning to end with context will understand a lot more took place there.”

Waters received questions about race and officers working closer with the Black community.

“Do you believe racism is real?” Jacksonville Chief Public Affairs Officer read a question card.

“Uh, yeah. Do I believe the entire world is racist? No,” said Waters. “Yes, I absolutely believe it, but do I believe that in the United States, in 2025, there’s a system in place held by the man to stop people from succeeding? No. Because if that was the case, I would not be standing before you right now.”

“I do believe that we need to work as hard as we can to continue to reach out and touch our communities, and that’s what we’re doing,” said Waters.

Waters is engaging with the subject of systemic racism the same way every GOP politician does: by downplaying it and presenting a strawman argument to avoid the core issue.

Black people and social justice advocates don’t typically argue that Black people can’t and don’t succeed due to systemic racism — we succeed in spite of it.

Furthermore, whether or not systemic racism can be accurately described as “a system in place held by the man to stop people from succeeding” has nothing to do with what happened to McNeil. No, police brutality won’t prevent McNeil from leading a successful life, especially since he walked away from the ordeal alive, but that’s immaterial to the fact that police brutality happened. Cops demonstrate over and over again that they’re more aggressive in confrontations with Black civilians, and they’ve shown their propensity to respond to perceived disobedience with unnecessary violence, not because they’re in danger, but because their little blue egos just can’t handle it.

Again, it’s unclear why Waters believes there’s some full story here that reveals anything that “logical people” who have seen the video footage aren’t already aware of.

Except for the knife, of course. That part, we, apparently, just have to take at face value.

Meanwhile, Ben Crump shared a short clip on social from McNeil’s press conference, calling the traffic stop dehumanizing.

“What happened to William McNeil Jr. should never happen during a traffic stop, Crump tweeted. “He was punched, dragged, and dehumanized — not for committing a violent crime, but for asking questions. America, this treatment is far from acceptable!”

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