Police have released video of an April traffic stop that lead to driving-under-the-influence charges against a Chattanooga man who later went on a shooting rampage that left five servicemen dead.
Police in Chattanooga have released an edited video showing the April 20, 2015 2:00 a.m. DUI arrest of Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, age 24, three months before the killing of five U.S. servicemen in an attack on a recruiting station and a Navy and Marine Reserve center in the city.
One of the officers said Abdulazeez had been weaving, and conducts a field sobriety test.
Then Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez takes off his sandals and has difficulty walking in a straight line. Then, when asked to say the alphabet from “E” through “W” he continues to the letter “Z.” The officers discusses his inability to follow instructions.
A police officer then asks about powder on or near Abdulazeez’s nose. He replies it’s from snorting caffeine pills.
“Caffeine pills up your nose, man? C’mon,” the officer says. “That can’t be good for you.”
Also during the DUI arrest, one of the police officers notes the smell of marijuana. Abdulazeez responds by saying that although he has smoked weed, he had not smoke marijuana that night. He said he had been around others who did.
Abdulazeez also told the officer he would decline to take a blood test to check his sobriety.
“I don’t feel that I should be taken in right now,” Abdulazeez tells the officer. “I mean was my driving that…” [bad]
“It was,” the cop answers. “It was. It was that bad.”
“Based off the way you performed off these evaluations, ok, it’s nothing against you,” the officer says. “It’s just, it is what it is, OK? It’s not good — the way you performed on these evaluations was very bad.”
The police officer places his hand on his own face in astonishment.
After Abdulazeez is transferred from the street to the back of the police car, he first asks if he can make a phone call and then asks if he can speak to a cop he knows.
“Oh Lord, don’t start dropping police names at this point, man,” the arresting officer says.
Police note in the video that it was edited for length. The video below condenses a period of about 45 minutes down to 12:27 minutes:seconds.
The arrest of Mohammad Abdulazeez from Chattanooga Times Free Press on Vimeo.
A Chattanooga Police officer followed Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez on April 20 as he weaved over the white dotted lines on Market Street. The officer flashed his blue lights when the 24-year-old turned onto the Highway 27 on-ramp. Abdulazeez was charged with a DUI. His arrest was three months before he was killed by police gunfire after killing five servicemen in a military center on Amnicola Highway.
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