A man claims a North Miami police officer threatened him after seeing him drive the wrong way down a one-way street.
Torrey Grissett said the incident happened last month, and as he got out of his SUV, he heard screaming and saw Steve Unmuth running toward him.
"I don't know if I'm being attacked or it's just going to be a commotion, so I just wanted to get what I could on video immediately," he said. "He would have shot me over a parking space."
Grissett's phone recorded the confrontation between him and Unmuth.
Unmuth: "Are you special? That you can drive in the wrong way?"
Grissett: "You wanna watch how you talk to me?"
Unmuth: "No, I'm not going to watch."
Grissett: "F*****, get your hand out of my face, man."
Unmuth: "Let me make a suggestion."
Grissett: "Get your hands off of me."
Unmuth: "Do you wanna see the badge?"
Grissett: "This is my last time telling you to put your hands off of me."
Unmuth: "Okay, here's the police ID."
Grissett: "Ok."
Unmuth: "That's my cop car that's parked out there."
Grissett: "Are you on duty?"
Unmuth: "I'm on duty 24/7 because we're in my city."
Grissett: "Are you on duty?"
Unmuth: "Yes."
Grissett: "No you're not. Where your badge?"
Unmuth: "In my house."
Grissett: "That's not on duty."
Unmuth: "You wanna see my f****** gun?"
Grissett: "You do what you gotta do. You're not on duty."
"I believe if that firearm was handy, he might have shot me," said Grissett.
Unmuth said he confronted Grissett after seeing him speeding into the lot and nearly hitting the officer's 13-year-old son, which wasn't mentioned in the recording.
"He (Grissett) didn't want to hear it," said Unmuth. "I feel he was threatening me by coming up and making contact with me."
Unmuth said he called for back-up on a direct police number.
"It's much faster to dial here than it is to dial 911," he said.
The police department says there is no recording of that phone call.
Personnel files show Unmuth has been an officer for more than 15 years and was rated "above satisfactory" on his last review.
The men disagree with each others' version of events.
Grissett never went to police and now feels he never can.
"I'm afraid of the people that are supposed to protect us," he said. "I don't think any person of authority should react that way. If you expect your citizens or people in your city or county to respect you, you should respect them as well."
The North Miami police chief wouldn't comment on the incident. Local 10's investigation has prompted the department to conduct an internal affairs investigation.
Comments