‘I’m Going to F–king Kill You!’: Black Man Held at Gunpoint by Louisiana Cops After He Was Falsely Accused of Shooting Cop — Then It Happens Again
Twice since 2018, Raheem Howard has been accused by Louisiana police of threatening people with a firearm, including shooting at a police officer who had crashed into the Black man from behind and threatened to kill him. But the accusation that he shot at a cop in 2018 turned out to be a lie by a Baton Rouge police officer because Howard did not even have a gun. Rasheem Howard has been threatened at gunpoint twice by the Baton Rouge Police Department. (Photo: WAFB-TV and Wikipedia) And the second incident that took place in the summer of 2025 turned out to be another case of police incompetence by Baton Rouge cops who searched his car without a warrant after accusing him of “matching the description” of another Black man who had pointed a gun at people. Howard, who has filed an internal affairs complaint over the second incident, is seeking legal help as well. However, the Baton Rouge Police Department spent seven months refusing to release body camera video from the second incident to WAFB-TV, which had filed a public records request, and is only now reporting on the incident. And when they finally did release it, it was heavily blurred, making it nearly impossible to see what was going on. But it is also obvious the cop is holding him at gunpoint, ordering him down on his knees with his hands in the air. And the audio is very clear. “There was a call about somebody in a gray vehicle pointing a gun at people, ok,” the Baton Rouge police officer tells him. ‘Use a Sledge Hammer’: A White Massachusetts Man Was Jailed for Racist Attack on a Black Fisherman and His Child, Then He Decided to Take It Further “No sir, I don’t have no gun,” responded Howard. The cop places the handcuffed Howard in the back of his patrol car before searching his car – but there is no point in the footage where the cop asks for consent to search his car which would generally be unconstitutional without a warrant. When the cop found no gun, he realized he had made a mistake. “My detainee is going to be released,” he said into his radio. “It’s not him.” But Howard knew he was just one wrong move from losing his life. “I would have been dead, if I would have moved around,” he told WAFB-TV. “One false move and I would have been dead.” Atlanta Black Star reached out to Howard for more details, but he has not responded. We will update this article if he does. ‘I’m Going to F_cking Kill You’ The first incident with Baton Rouge police took place on Aug. 7, 2018, when Baton Rouge police officer Yuseff Hamadeh turned on his emergency lights to pull Howard over for not having a license plate. But Hamadeh, who was part of the department’s “Street Crimes Unit,” rammed his patrol car into Howard’s car from behind as the Black man was trying to pull over to the side of the road, according to the pending lawsuit. “I am going to f_cking kill you!” Hamadeh threatened Howard, who had stepped out of the car after the collision, from behind. Fearing for his life, Howard took off running with Hamadeh chasing him. Hamadeh then fired a single shot as Howard ran in the opposite direction from him. But the cop missed, and Howard escaped. Hamadeh then told a responding officer that he fired after Howard had fired at him first, sparking a huge manhunt for Howard to arrest him on a charge of attempted first-degree murder on a police officer, which could have sent him to prison for decades. Howard turned himself in to the Baton Rouge Police Department on August 11, 2018, urging the cops to review body and dash camera footage from that night that would have cleared his name. But the cops refused to show him any footage, telling him the footage showed him with a gun, hoping to coerce a false confession from him. However, the cops were lying because there was no footage since Hamadeh turned off both his body and dash cameras, and turned the rear camera facing downwards. The rear camera remained on, however, which is what recorded Hamadeh telling the other cop that Howard had shot at him first. Howard spent almost three weeks in jail on felony charges before the local prosecutor dismissed the case against him after numerous witnesses reported only hearing a single gunshot that day. Hamadeh, meanwhile, was terminated, but he appealed and was reinstated after he argued that investigators violated the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights by not recording a polygraph test and denying him counsel during the exam. He was then allowed to resign in early 2019 with back pay. Hamadeh, who is still allowed to work in law enforcement, is believed to be working in the private sector. Warrantless Search The second incident took place in June 2025 as Howard, 29, had just left the gym and was pulled over at gunpoint, ordered to get out of the car. The traffic stop lasted less than six minutes. WAFB-TV interviewed Baton Rouge defense attorney Jarrett Ambeau about the legality of the stop, who said warrantless searches are permissible under certain circumstances, including this one. “The officer has to have credible information that evidence of the crime that he thinks is afoot is in the car. So this person has a gun in the car and is pointing it at other people. That’s good, credible information. He’s got no reason to disbelieve it,” Ambeau told reporters. But other than the fact that Howard was a Black man driving a gray car in a city where about 50 percent of the population is Black, it is not clear what “good, credible information” led the cop to believe Howard was the culprit. The fact that it took seven months before the Baton Rouge Police Department released the video, and only after they blurred it, indicates they lacked credible information to pull a gun on Howard and search his car without a warrant. And Howard is right that one wrong move could have led to his death. Not surprisingly, the Baton Rouge Police Department has earned a reputation for racist, abusive and unconstitutional behavior towards Black men, including allegations from a set of lawsuits in 2023, accusing the agency of driving Black people to a hidden “torture warehouse” to beat them.
