No charges for man who posted video of Wilmington police

Wilmington Police Chief Bobby Cummings said Thursday night – as a crowd of about 200 people massed outside police headquarters – that the man who posted a video of Wilmington police officers interviewing three black children on Market Street earlier this week would not be charged.

"As you know, there are a lot of incidents going around our nation that impact our community relations with the police," Cummings said. "We don't need to add fuel to that fire. We need to be considerate. We need to listen to the information and observe what you see. We need to stop jumping to conclusions on the first thing that we see without having all of the information. We will deal with situations within our Police Department internally, but again, we will not be going forward with charges on Damieon Flowers."

"Thank you," the crowd cheered.

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On Monday, Flowers livestreamed a video on Facebook showing a police officer writing down the names of three boys who were on bicycles. Flowers can be heard off camera questioning the officer's authority, then giving the boys instructions. The video registered 4 million views as of Thursday night.

"Yo man, you all didn't do nothing," Flowers is heard saying. "As a matter of fact, don't say nothing. You don't got to say nothing until your mom comes."

"Is their mom coming?" the officer asks Flowers.

The boys are allowed to go shortly after. Flowers continues to tell the officer to let them go: "They're babies, man."

The officer turns around and tells him that no one said the boys did anything.

"You're taking their names," Flowers said. The officers responded by telling him they hadn't run the names and asked, "Do you know what's going on, sir?"

When Flowers asked what was going on, the officer said they were having "serious problems down the Riverfront ...."

Flowers interrupts the officer, telling him to then catch the perpetrator and "leave them little boys alone, man."

The officers leave the scene, and Flowers turned the camera toward himself and went on a rant, including saying how he was about to hit the officer.

The video received 4 million views since it was posted to Facebook, and Flowers gained a groundswell of support in Wilmington. It also caught the attention of police.

On Thursday, Flowers posted on Facebook that a police SWAT team went to his home earlier in the day. He said he would surrender to police at 7 p.m.

Flowers said he did not feel comfortable turning himself in without "a voice beyond his reach," so he called Pastor Derrick Johnson, of Joshua Harvest Church.

A meeting was arranged where Flowers would meet with Johnson at the church and later be turned over to Capt. Faheem Akil. Both men would escort Flowers to police headquarters at Fourth and Walnut streets.

Flowers arrived at city headquarters at about 7:30 p.m. to a crowd of about 200 people.

Less than an hour later, Cummings announced that no charges would be filed.

"This is a situation that usually doesn't get exposed," Johnson said. "It's the underlying conversation with regard to race and the community and the police. And the underlying conversation is that many white officers lack the cultural deep de-escalation skills and the knowledge of how to interact with our community and end up acting out of their anger as opposed to their training.

"And it is a race discussion."

Flowers explained that the fear he saw on the young kids' faces enraged him.

"I know several officers that have proper policing skills, and they can deal with the kids they interact [with]," Flowers said. "But they were coming at them like they were criminals."

EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL AUDIENCES.

Cheris Lockett, a good friend of Flowers, was inside the police headquarters when Flowers turned himself in. She said both sides had a conversation discussing how both were at fault.

"Both parties took responsibility and said the incident didn't have to go that far," Lockett said. "Both recognized the accountability on both of their parts. Everybody was in agreement that we wanted to do right by the Police Department, by popular policing in the community, but we also want our community to feel safe."

"It was a good outcome because these things need to happen to make people uncomfortable. I think it was an unfortunate situation, but these types of things need to get the community riled up, so we can learn how to rally and unite together because that's what brings about change. It was good to see the community come out."

Contact Alonzo Small at (302) 324-2856 or asmall@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @P_AlonzoSmall. Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.

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