Mack Buckley is lucky to be alive after a run-in with a Delaware State Police officer during what should have been a routine traffic stop. The video comes days after the release of a video showing a police officer in Delaware’s New Castle County beating a teenager during a drug arrest.
Delaware State Police have said the interaction is “currently under review.”
Buckley, a self-published author and entrepreneur, was driving in the Slaughter Neck section of Sussex County when he was pulled over by a police officer. In a video clip posted to Buckley’s Facebook page, he can be seen waiting for the officer to approach his vehicle. After the officer, who Buckley identified as Corporal O’Neil of Troop 7 in Lewes, Del., orders him out of the car, Buckley refuses to leave his mother’s vehicle before the officer draws his weapon and points it at Buckley through the driver’s side window.
The officer can be heard telling Buckley “I’m not fucking with you” while pointing his weapon at Buckley from inches away.
“Why are you pulling the gun on me?” Buckley can be heard shouting before throwing his phone and raising his hands. Buckley repeatedly asks the officer why it was necessary to draw his weapon as the officer repeatedly orders him to unbuckle his seat and step out of the car.
“Stop reaching for shit,” the officer tells Buckley, who reached for his phone earlier in the video.
Buckley, who was driving to see his mother, took to Instagram to share his side of the story. “First off,” he wrote, “I’m not a wanted person. I’m not on probation.” Buckley states he believed he was being pulled over for speeding, though he was at least two miles from the spot where he believes he was initially spotted. Buckley also told the Cape Gazette that the officer never asked for his license or registration.
“I just denied the man the answers he wanted because he denied me the answers I wanted,” he said.
“This hit home,” Buckley told the paper. “Right around the corner from my mom’s house, I could have lost my life,” he said. “He put the gun up to my chest. At that point, I thought I was done. I was waiting for the pop.”
“On the way to the troop he kept referring to YOU PEOPLE,” Buckley wrote in the video’s description. “I asked him who was YOU PEOPLE since there was only him and I in the vehicle. Then he proceeded to say I was a worthless piece of shit.”
Buckley was released on $1,000 bond pending a March court appearance. Sergeant Richard Bratz of the Delaware State Police declined to identify the officer: “This review is part of an internal process to ensure that we are in compliance with divisional policy and that we are also performing our duties at the level of professionalism that is expected by the citizens that we serve.”