‘You Dead A– Wrong!’: Cop Pulls Gun on Man Pumping Gas, Then Desperately Tries to Spin the Story Until Everyone Points Out the Obvious, Video Shows
A Leon County, Florida deputy sheriff who mistook a man holding up a gas pump nozzle for a gun faced immediate ridicule from his suspect, and is now being roasted online. The incident occurred on the afternoon of Aug. 7 at a Circle K store in Tallahassee, according to police body camera video posted online by BP Cast, a YouTube channel focused on law enforcement abuses. The video begins from the point of view of the deputy as his patrol car is fast approaching a tattooed man in a tank top standing next to a gas pump. The deputy jumps out with his gun drawn and has this exchange with the startled man: An unidentified man tells a Leon County, Florida deputy that he was holding a gas nozzle attached to a hose, not a handgun, in a body cam video from Aug. 7, 2025. (Photo: BP Cast video screenshot of Leon County Sheriff's Department video) Officer: What do you have in your hand? Show me your hands! (The man complies, raising his hands). Officer: OK, turn around. Place your hands behind your back. What are you doing? Man (with his hands behind his back): I'm filling up a gas can. Officer: You understand you're holding it like this, like it's a pistol, right? ‘Illegal Kidnapping’: ‘Rogue’ Texas Deputy Lied About Having Warrant to Arrest Black Woman Then Took Her Key and Ransacked Her Home Man: No, I was showing her (nods toward the store) to cut the pump on.Officer: OK. But that's not what it looks like to the motoring public on the roadway. The officer then asks the man for his identification. Man: Can I turn around? Officer: Yeah, that's fine. All right. But you understand you're holding it like this and it looks like a handgun, right? Man: No, I'm just I'm trying to let her know to pump the gas, bro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?vGQ1muXAuXWw As the situation calms and the deputy seems to come to terms with his mistake, the man and his female passenger begin to berate the officer: Woman: I'm sure there's cameras.Man: I ain't got nothing to say to you, bro. I ain't did nothing. I ain't being detained. I want to go. I don't got nothing to say to you. You know what you did. I don't got no rap. Officer: Well, it looked like he was holding a gun. Man (holding gas hose attached to the pumping station): Man, that don't look like no gun when you see this right here swinging. Officer: I didn't see that, sir. Man: Yeah, you saw what you wanted to see. The deputy, who said his badge number was 385, then went inside the store, and tried to enlist the clerk in his investigation. He told her he was driving down the road and saw the man moving something black in his hand “like it’s a pistol.” “Oh, yeah,” said the clerk, who identified herself as Shanika. “’Cause his pump wasn’t on and he was signaling me that the pump wasn’t on.” At this point a man in a brown tee shirt walked into the store, gave the deputy a fist bump and told him he was an off-duty police officer from Alabama, and seemed to offer the deputy some backup as a witness. “Yeah. I noticed him as we were coming up,” said the man, who later identified himself as Officer Jake Auwerda from the Prichard Police Department in Alabama. “So, you saw him with the thing in his hand?” asked the Leon County deputy hopefully, adding, “When I saw him, he didn't have the thing with the hose. He had something else.” Shanika then interjected, reminding the officers that the gas pump wasn’t working and “he was signaling me.” The deputy then tried a new tack. “Is he causing problems at y’all’s store?” the deputy asked the clerk. “No,” she answered. “He comes in here every day faithfully after work. He comes here to get gas.” A few minutes later she elaborated that the man is “very friendly” and “respectful” and comes in often with his wife. “They stop by here," she said. "He gets his $15 worth of gas and his two cigarettes and he rolls on out. That's why I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what's going on out there?’" The deputy then turned to his new law enforcement friend to see if he could describe what the suspect had in his hand.“He was just holding this gas pump up like this,” said Auwerda, gesturing.“I don't know what he had in his hand. Just kind of raising it up. I don't know if he was trying to straighten it out or what?” The seemingly frustrated deputy reiterated that he thought he saw the man holding a gun when he was driving by, and told the clerk, “I wanted to make sure you weren't getting like held up or something, right?” “I thank you for being here,” Shanika replied sympathetically, noting that she often works by herself late at night. “I get crazy people through here. So, I'm glad y'all do be alert.” Finding no witnesses to support his perception that the man at the pump had brandished a gun, the deputy walked outside, where encountered his suspect. The man shook his head and said, “Hey, man. You got to stop profiling. You need to apologize.” “Can you come talk to me for a second?” asked the deputy. “No, I really don't want to,” the man said. “For real. But you know what you did. And you know you dead a-- wrong. You know I ain't had no gun.” The video indicates that several seconds went by and the officer said nothing in reply. “The fact that this officer knew he was wrong and still didn't say sorry, it just shows how prideful he is,” commented the BP Cast host on the video. “The whole time this guy was doing nothing but pumping gas. You having this guy almost lose his life because this officer needs to wear some damn glasses.”“Cops think a finger is a gun, cops think a cell phone is a gun, cops think a key chain is a gun ,,,Now we have a cop that thinks a gas nozzle is a gun , Do they ever give cops EYE tests before they hire them?” echoed @TomTritt1776. Others who commented on the YouTube video indicated the deputy was dishonest. “The cop is a liar too, accusing him of ‘holding something else (aside from the gas nozzle)’,” wrote @FarckewVerimucc. “Cant believe how he walk into the store and tried to get the clerk to incriminate the guy.” “Its like they forget they are wearing a camera when they are later deceptive about the situation,” noted @nunyabusiness1755."’Is he causing a problem at yall's store?’ Trying to get that trespass right quick!” observed @Endoscopic911. Commenter @purdhupley7864 captured the consensus of many viewers: “The only one causing a problem there was this Chicken Little cop.”The Leon County Sheriff’s Department did not immediately respond to a request from Atlanta Black Star to identify the deputy and to provide a comment on the incident.
