A newly released video from March 2021 shows a Carroll, Iowa, police officer climbing on the hood of a car and pointing his gun at the driver, who then drove off with the officer still clinging to the vehicle.
The officer, Patrick McCarty, testified in court that he broke a vertabra in his back when the car hit a ditch and he fell off, the Des Moines Register reported.
The driver, Dennis Guider Jr., has said he feared for his life, according to KCCI Des Moines.
He pleaded guilty earlier this year to the felony of serious injury by vehicle. His attorney asked a judge for leniency, arguing that McCarty had pointed a gun in his client’s face and that the officer did not follow training. Guider was sentenced to up to five years in prison, the outlet reported.
The video, which became public last week, reveals a difference between the story police initially told and what actually happened, as the Register noted. McCarty said in a 2021 radio interview that Guider put “the vehicle in drive and guns it, forcing me onto the vehicle itself.” And the police said soon after the incident that the vehicle struck McCarty before he went on the hood, according to the Register.
The video shows McCarty telling Guider, who was at the time in the passenger seat, there was a warrant for his arrest linked to an Illinois forgery case. He asks the man to get out; instead, after a pause, the driver gets out of the car and Guider moves into the driver’s seat.
McCarty moves in front of the car and draws his gun. The car moves forward slowly, with another officer walking alongside also telling the man to stop. McCarty then steps onto the hood with his gun still drawn and pointing through the windshield.
“Stop the car, stop the fucking car,” McCarty yells.
Guider, who at one point held up his hands, continues to drive with McCarty on the hood, crossing a street as another police car pulls up and begins to follow them.
The car then speeds ahead ― hitting up to 50 miles per hour, according to a criminal complaint ― as the officer clings onto the roof. McCarty loses his hold of the car when it went over a ditch, and Guider drives off.
He drove for another mile and ultimately fled the state, according to police.
McCarty later acknowledged that “he had not been trained to step in front of a vehicle with his weapon drawn to prevent it from fleeing,” according to the Register. Carroll police Chief Brad Burke said that McCarty “in the heat of the moment made a lapse in judgment in an attempt to apprehend the suspect.”
The video contains disturbing footage.
This story has been updated with additional information about the incident.