A Tufts professor was knocked to the ground and detained by police officers in Atlanta earlier this month after he refused to walk within a crosswalk and declined to show identification, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Officer Kevin Leonpacher was directing pedestrians at an intersection in downtown Atlanta on Jan. 4 when history professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto stepped into the street.
The professor, who was in Atlanta to attend the American Historical Association's convention, disregarded Leonpacher's order to cross within a crosswalk, the police officer told the AP.
Fernandez-Armesto, a British citizen, told the Daily that did not realize Leonpacher was a policeman, because his badge was not visible.
"All that I was aware of was that a young man was calling to me," he said. "He was wearing a leather jacket, but here in Massachusetts police wear their badges on the outside. This just looked like a young man."
Fernandez-Armesto was also unaware that jaywalking is a crime. "I had absolutely no idea that I was doing anything wrong. It was just a misunderstanding," he said.
"I thought he was calling out a warning to me, and I thanked him and I walked on," Fernandez-Armesto said.
According to Fernandez-Armesto, an "overzealous" Leonpacher then accosted the professor and demanded that he present identification, but Fernandez-Armesto, who had left his green card in his hotel room, refused.
After the professor's repeated refusals, Leonpacher and a group of other officers threw Fernandez-Armesto to the ground and handcuffed him, leaving him with a cut on his forehead and a bruised wrist. The police then took him to jail, where he spent eight hours in custody.
He was charged with disorderly conduct and jaywalking, but these charges were dropped after he "threw [him]self at the mercy of the judge" and explained that "any conviction could put his immigration status at risk," he said.
According to the AP, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has requested an investigation into the entire incident to make sure that the police officers were not overly brutal.
Leonpacher maintains that he did not act inappropriately and told the AP that he used an "excessive amount of discretion" and that it was Fernandez-Armesto who was overly aggressive in the encounter.
The incident received coverage in many media outlets including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Washington Post, and "it was even in the half-time chat during a big league soccer game on the BBC," Fernandez-Armesto said. "The reception of my story has been comical.""by Giovanni Russonello
