Tennessee Man Beaten by Officers, Speaks Out After Incident [Update]

Updated as of 10/25/2022 at 12:00 p.m. ET

Brandon Calloway, 25, was brutally arrested in his home for an alleged traffic violation, according to NBC News. Reports say police chased him into the house, shocked him with a Taser and beat him with batons until he was nearly unconscious. Calloway claims the situation escalated due to racial profiling.

Calloway went to court to appear before the judge on speeding, evading arrest and disorderly conduct charges when he took a few moments to address the incident, according to AP News. The report says the beating from the officers left him with stitches in his head, speech issues, memory loss and mental trauma. Calloway and his family insist the situation would have been different if he’d been white.

“I just happened to get stopped in a nice car and my dad lives in a nice neighborhood. That was the only crime right there,” Calloway said via AP. Calloway’s father, Ed, expressed even more anger toward the officers.

More from AP News:

Calloway’s father, Ed Calloway, agreed, remarking that the situation “revealed the issues that we still have with the relationship between police and young African-American males, and this innate fear of being caught up in this situation.”

“If he was white, no, he would never have gotten pulled over,” and the situation would not have escalated like it did, Ed Calloway said.

Ed Calloway also said police unlawfully entered his house.

“It was my home, it was my door that they kicked in,” he said, adding that his daughter suffered trauma when she saw “her brother’s blood all over the floor, all over the walls, throughout the house.”

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation launched a probe into the incident and, once they’re done, the state police agency will pass the report over to the district attorney who will decide whether to charge the officers.

Attorney Andre Wharton is hoping for accountability and previously described the officer’s actions as vicious.

“We don’t treat animals like that; but we certainly don’t treat human beings like that. To add insult to injury, you have an officer, just two years out of the George Floyd incident, who is putting his foot on the neck of a clearly disabled suspect at that time,” he said, via the Times.

It’s a miracle Calloway is alive considering the number of officers who would rather pull out their guns than a baton.

Read what happened from The New York Times:

According to the affidavit, about 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Mr. Calloway “failed to stop at the stop sign, and did not stop until he was in the turn” for another street. He then “sped away,” documents say, reaching 32 miles per hour in a 20 m.p.h. Zone.

An Oakland police officer, referred to in court documents only as D. Jackson, “attempted to initiate a traffic stop,” but was unsuccessful. He continued following Mr. Calloway, who, the affidavit says, was “refusing to stop.” Eventually, documents say, Mr. Calloway stopped in a driveway, where he “jumped out of the driver seat and started running to the house while reaching into his pockets.”

Just before 8 p.m., a second officer, referred to only as Richardson, arrived at the house, where the two ultimately “made entry by kicking in the front door,” said the affidavit, adding that Mr. Calloway “ran up the stairs and locked himself in his room.”

In video footage shared by Mr. Calloway’s legal team that they said was taken by his girlfriend, Tamia Caldwell, two police officers can be seen running up a staircase — one holding a baton, the other a Taser.

There was an exhibit at The Whitney years ago that featured an installation about Rodney King’s beating in 1992. You walked inside a black box that sat in the middle of the room, with just enough space for one person. Inside was a video of the incident and photographs of King’s face, beaten and bloodied.

I left the installation hysterical and the closest security guard, a Black man, calmed me down, knowing exactly what I had seen. Watching the footage from this incident was like reliving that moment.