Houston police officers are being lauded for listening to people and asking them for help during an arrest this week. Video of the incident has gone viral, for all the right reasons, noted local news station KHOU-TV.
During the incident, Ulerick Fields, who is Black, saw a white police officer attempting to handcuff a Black man on the ground. He immediately pulled his phone and started recording. He could have just watched, but the Mr. Fields put himself in harm’s way to make sure the suspect survived.
“Don’t get on his neck now. Just taze him,” he could be heard screaming to police in witness video. The incident Fields captured on video Monday unfolded at a gas station in southeast Houston, according to local news station KHOU-TV. Fields was at the business to purchase gum when police officers called to the scene arrived. Witnesses told them a man with a knife appeared to be on drugs at the gas station, and police moved to arrest the man, the news outlet reported.
“He had a knife, a butcher knife,” a witness could be heard yelling in one video clip of the incident. In another, a police officer responded to Fields and another bystander’s demand not to hurt the suspect with a request. “Y’all want to help out?” the cop asked.
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“Hell naw,” one of the bystanders responded. Then, the officer asked again: “Help us out!”
That’s when Fields stepped in. “Don’t do all that resisting, bro. Chill out, bro,” he told the suspect. The officer explained that the captured man didn’t want to give police his arms to be handcuffed, so Fields lied down on the ground and looked the man in his eyes. “Give him your arm bro,” Fields told him. At that point, one of the bystanders on the scene could be seen grabbing the suspect’s arms while explaining that he didn’t want the man to get hurt. Officers were then able to handcuff the suspect, the video showed. “To me, that should be a training video for society and for the police officers to illustrate how we should work together,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo told KTRK-TV.
Grammy Award-winning producer Timbaland applauded police Friday in a caption on his Instagram page. “They got it right this time‼️ 🙏🏽HPD,” he said. Rapper Snoop Dogg replied to the post, which featured Fields’ video, with a blue heart and strong arm emoji.
Fields told the station he initially thought the responding officer was trying to bait him in an attempt to get him in trouble when the cop asked for help. “But when he came back and asked again, then I knew he needed help,” Fields said. “So right then and there my heart goes out to the both of them.”
Fields described himself as a former “career criminal” who turned his life around after finding God. The incident followed the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died shortly after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes. Fields told KTRK he didn’t want the same fate for the man he encountered. “The suspect needed a chance to have a second chance,” Fields told KTRK, “not to get hurt, not to get killed, not to get brutally beat up.”
Watch the video below:
