Colorado cop caught pointing gun at doctor's head without provocation as he tried to park on his own property
AURORA, COLORADO: A Colorado police department, which grabbed headlines after three of its officers were fired for mocking the chokehold death of a young Black man, is once again under scrutiny after new footage shows an officer pulling a gun on a doctor who was trying to park at a refugee center he runs.
Police body camera footage captures the contentious back and forth between Dr P.J. Parmar and Officer J. Henderson with the Aurora Police Department. “Let me see your ***ing hands. What are you doing?” Henderson says in the video. “You’re on my property, leave," Parmar says in response.
Parmar was pulling in to the Mango House building – where he owns an office – at around 6 pm on March 1 to drop off some gear from a Boy Scout trip when he spotted a police vehicle in his parking garage. “I stopped immediately. I beeped at him to get his attention and I knew there was going to be something interesting, so I started filming him,” Parmar told Fox 31.
According to him, the officer approached his car and pointed a gun directly at his head. “It’s a mix of being scared and it’s a mix of being annoyed and frustrated,” Parmar said.
The doctor is seen in the video telling the officer to get off his property while he unloads his gear. The cops leave eventually.
Henderson explained his version of events to another APD officer captured on body cam. “I was typing a report and he comes rolling in here like he’s about to assault me with his car,” the officer said. Parmar was asked by the outlet if he didn't feel he was "overly aggressive in starting your interaction with the officer, the way you pulled in?”
“The way I pulled in was absolutely the way I pulled in many times. I didn’t know he was there," the doctor responded.
According to Parmar’s attorney David Lane, this is a clear case of excessive force. “The U.S. Supreme Court has said pointing a gun at someone is use of force and you have to be in reasonable fear that your life is in jeopardy to use that level of force," Lane told Fox 31. "All Dr. Parmar did was honk his horn at this cop who is illegally parked in Parmar’s building parking lot."
The latest episode with the APD comes just days after the department was criticized following the death of Elijah McClain and news of another officer being found inebriated in his patrol car while on duty. “For my one episode with the video camera, there’s a dozen unfortunate souls ending up on the wrong end of that gun,” Parmar said, calling for a restricting of the entire Aurora Police Department.
The doctor first posted cellphone video online before nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice erupted over the Memorial Day death of George Floyd. According to Parmar, some viewers told him he should have been more docile with the police, but he thinks that would have only encouraged the officer to use more force against him.
“Oppressors can only oppress when they have an audience, a victim, and I wasn’t going to be his audience that night,” he said.