The Johnny Wheatcroft Case
Criminal charges filed against former Glendale cop who tased man 11 times
Officer Matthew Schneider has been criminally charged with aggravated assault for using excessive force against Johnny Wheatcroft in 2017.
An Arizona man did nothing to provoke repeated shocks with a stun gun during a 2017 traffic stop, said an attorney representing the man in an excessive force lawsuit.
Attorney Marc Victor said that Johnny Wheatcroft was compliant and it was “egregious” that police in Glendale did nothing to stop the abuse. The lawyer spoke out a day after posting body camera footage from the encounter online.
Wheatcroft, 39, was seated next to a friend who was driving to a motel on July 26, 2017, when police stopped them. Wheatcroft’s wife, Anya Chapman, was in the backseat with the couple’s two children.
Officers pulled over the car because of a traffic violation and discovered the driver didn’t have a license, according to police. Wheatcroft declined to show police his driver’s license and questioned why he had to provide identification.
The body camera footage posted by The Attorneys For Freedom Law Firm, and previously obtained by ABC15, shows the incident quickly escalated with an officer pinning Wheatcroft’s right arm back. According to police, Wheatcroft had reached down below his seat into a backpack. Wheatcroft “continued to argue, yell and physically resist the officers’ control holds,” according to a police statement. But clearly, from watching the video, this was not the case.
The video shows officers used a stun gun several times after Wheatcroft questioned having to provide identification. Victor has said his client was shocked 11 times. Chapman and a child in the backseat immediately start to scream. The child asks, “Daddy, are you OK?”
An officer says Chapman then hit another officer in the head. Surveillance video released by police on Friday shows an officer getting hit in the face by a bag.
Victor posted a video of that injured officer, Mark Lindsey, being interviewed by police in a hospital. Victor says it shows the officer laughing off the incident. The seven-minute video begins with someone asking Lindsey what happened and the injured officer laughing while sitting up in a hospital bed.
