‘He Was Going To Blow My Head Off!’: Black Man Who Put Car In Reverse as a Hail of Bullets Fired By ‘Overly Aggressive’ NJ Cops Now Seeks Payback
A Black motorist who was shot by Bloomfield, New Jersey, police as they attempted to arrest him for open felony warrants in 2020 is suing the town and the officers involved for using excessive force and conspiracy, claiming they lied when they reported that they fired at him because he tried to ram them with his car while fleeing. Jeffrey Sutton’s insistence that he never tried to hit the officers with his 2015 Mercedes-Benz on Nov. 9, 2020, was vindicated the following year by police body cam, dash cam and witness cell phone video obtained and aired by News12 New Jersey. Sutton, now 42, was wanted for armed robbery and aggravated assault when Bloomfield Police, responding to an automated license plate reader that had flagged his car as a “felony vehicle” cut him off on a downtown street and burst out of their unmarked SUV with their weapons drawn. Jeffrey Sutton (left) is suing the Township of Bloomfield, New Jersey and several of its police officers, including Deputy Chief Gary Peters (right) for excessive use of force after he was shot in his car while fleeing arrest (center). (Photos: Jahid Sutton Facebook profile, Bloomfield Police Department video screenshot). At first Sutton had no idea that the several men in plainclothes swarming around his car were cops, and “reversed away in retreat,” according to his lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey (and obtained by Atlanta Black Star). “I was scared sh—less, bro,” he told The Jersey Vindicator. “I was like, ‘Who the freak is this? And what’s going on? … I had never seen a takedown like this.” ‘Think We Have the Wrong Guy’: Innocent Black Florida Man Attacked by Cops and Mauled by K9 After ‘Matching the Description,’ Files Lawsuit Terrified, the mother of one of his six children jumped out of the car. Sutton, then recognizing one of the armed men as a cop, came to a stop and turned off his car engine to show officers that he intended to comply, intermittently holding up his hands, the lawsuit says. Three officers kept their guns trained on Sutton and tried repeatedly to break the windows of his car while ordering him to get out. Capt. Gary Peters positioned himself directly in front of his vehicle, pointed his handgun at Sutton’s head, “spewed obscenities and repeatedly screamed that he would shoot him,” the complaint says. Sutton pleaded for his life and assured the officers he did not have a weapon and begged them to put theirs away, he says.
