Cop Gone Wild In Trouble Over Motorist's Video
A car-mounted video camera — more commonly used by police than against them — captured a loud and threatening confrontation in this tiny St. Louis County community that left an officer on suspension and the whole world able to listen in.
The picture doesn't show much, but the audio part of the recording, posted on Google Video and YouTube on the Internet, brought more than 300 protest calls to St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig.
"I was very displeased when I saw the actions on the video," Uhrig said. "My officers are not trained and taught to act like that."
He put Sgt. James Kuehnlein on unpaid suspension pending further investigation.
Uhrig said the officer's actions were not justified, and he insisted the episode is not representative of his department.
A voice identified as Kuehnlein's can be heard taunting the driver and threatening to jail him on fabricated charges.
The tape, made late last week, was from a camera running in the vehicle Kuehnlein approached, police said.
Brett Darrow, 20, of St. Louis, said he was the driver who recorded the exchange. He posted it online Saturday.
"I wanted everybody to see that this kind of stuff does happen," Darrow said. "I thought if I just go to the chief or whatever, it would just get swept under the rug."
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