![]() “I communicated to officers, ‘Hey, we’re on the last part of the song,’” Mims said. Mims said his band was split up when they were playing, with about 15 students on the track and 130 in the stands. CNN has reached out to that office for comment. The Birmingham Police Department referred CNN’s request for comment to the Office of the City Attorney. “That an educator would be tased in front of students by law enforcement is unacceptable. “My client, not at one time, attempted to assault, in any fashion, the Birmingham Police Department,” Givan said. Givan, an attorney for Mims, called the police description of the incident “an absolute lie.” “The arresting officer then subdued the band director with a Taser which ended the physical confrontation.” “The arresting officer alleges the band director pushed him during the arrest,” the police statement said. Mims said he was tased in the shoulder and torso. “BPD officers attempted to take the band director into custody for Disorderly Conduct when a physical altercation ensued between the band director, Birmingham City Schools System personnel, and BPD officers,” the statement said. The home team band stopped playing when asked, but Mims “instructed his band to continue performing,” the statement said. The incident began Thursday, when officers asked band directors from both schools to stop their performances after a football game at PD Jackson-Olin High School so people would leave the stadium, Birmingham Police spokesperson Truman Fitzgerald previously said in a statement. The association has called for Mims’ return to work.ĭirector’s lawyer disputes police account of the incident “We cannot allow violence to be the way we handle situations,” Theron Stokes, lead attorney for the Alabama Education Association, the union that represents teachers in the state, said at a Wednesday news conference. Mims has been placed on administrative leave, which Gonsoulin said is standard protocol while the district reviews the situation. Our district leadership is still reviewing and analyzing the video and related circumstances, and will reserve further comment pending completion of that review,” he said. “I am not prepared to discuss specifics on the content of the video. “Nothing is more important than their well-being.”īirmingham police allowed the district to review the bodycam footage Monday night, Gonsoulin said. “It’s extremely upsetting to me that our students, our children, had to witness that scene,” Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Walter Gonsoulin said in a statement Tuesday. The Birmingham Police Department released body camera video of the encounter that shows Mims being tased as people nearby scream. “I was just trying to do my job, which was previously established before the end of the game.”ĬNN has reached out to Jackson-Olin High School for comment.Īttorneys representing Mims are requesting all charges against him be dropped and for the officers involved to be placed on administrative leave. “I was not trying to be defiant to the police department,” said Mims. “The director from Jackson-Olin High School came over to set up a coordination of playing a few tunes after the game,” Mims said, adding that they settled on playing three songs. Mims said he and the band director from PD Jackson-Olin High School, where the football game took place, had agreed to continue playing music after the game ended. “Regardless of how this may have started, there’s nothing that happened that would have warranted my client being tased multiple times, even while on the ground like some total criminal, at that point in front of 145 students,” Mims’ attorney Juandalynn Givan said Tuesday on CNN This Morning. Officers obtained arrest warrants for disorderly conduct, harassment and resisting arrest, police said.Īlabama band director tased and arrested after high school football game for refusing to stop performance, police say From FacebookĪlabama band director tased and arrested after high school football game for refusing to stop performance, police say “There’s no way to explain how I’m doing, because I know that my students are hurting.”Īfter the incident, Mims was taken to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital and then to the Birmingham City Jail, where he was booked and later bonded out. Mims said he is most concerned for the students who had to witness the incident, saying, “They are the most important thing in this situation.” “No educator should ever have to experience that.” It was excessive,” Johnny Mims, the Minor High School band director, said in a news conference Tuesday. The Alabama band director who was shocked by a police stun gun and arrested after refusing to stop his band’s performance at a high school football game said the post-game songs had been arranged ahead of time and the whole experience has left him traumatized.
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