Fuquay-Varina police release body cam footage of Black teen being cuffed in his yard

More than a month after a Wake County teenager was handcuffed in his own yard, police released body camera footage of the incident Saturday.

The Fuquay-Varina Police Department posted the footage — two hours documenting the event from three responding officers’ cameras — on Facebook and Youtube after a Wake County judge allowed its release.

Malcolm Ziglar, a Black 14-year-old in Fuquay-Varina, had been trying to fix and resell a dirt bike he purchased on Facebook Marketplace and was surprised when police arrived at his door on Jan. 30.

Ziglar was unaware that the bike he had purchased had been stolen and that the prospective buyers who had come to see it moments earlier were actually its original owners. They can be seen on the footage reporting him as the thief.

“What did I do?” Ziglar asks as police handcuff him in his front yard.

“You’re in possession of a stolen motor vehicle,” they respond.

“What? What?” he asks repeatedly as he is taken to the squad car.

Ziglar asks officers to get his father from inside the house and tells an officer he is 14. He also asks if he can retrieve the bill of sale to prove he purchased the bike.

Police search him and ask him to sit in the police car.

Multiple times, Ziglar asks passing neighbors to get his father, but an officer says they will handle that.

When a third officer arrives, he asks why Ziglar, a minor, is being detained.

“I haven’t asked him any questions, but he’s been running his mouth,” the first officer says shortly after.

Police then release Ziglar and allow him to enter the house, where he is able to provide the bill of sale and other information.

Mayor urges community to ‘move forward’

In a statement Saturday, Fuquay-Varina Mayor John Byrne called on community members to “move forward” and said race was not a factor in the officers’ actions.

“It is not an uncommon procedure for an officer to detain a suspect while gathering information related to a complaint where probable cause exists,” he said. “In no way did the officer detain Mr. Ziglar because of race.”

But Ziglar’s family says the incident was traumatic and that race influenced how the situation unfolded. Ziglar’s friend, who was present and is white, was handcuffed only briefly and was not detained in the car.

Ty Ziglar, Malcolm’s mother, told The News & Observer she thinks the footage was deliberately posted on a Saturday morning because it would receive less attention from the media and community then.

The editing of the video — which situates one officer’s interactions with Ziglar’s friend before focusing on Malcolm being detained in the police car — is misleading, she added.

“The story was about my son,” she said. “Unless you were trying to portray the police department as getting this right, why start with the video of the other teenage boy?”

She fears few people will watch long enough to see Malcolm’s treatment, which is not seen directly until roughly 54 minutes into the footage.

Susan Weis, a spokeswoman for the town of Fuquay-Varina, said they released the footage as soon as court-ordered redactions were completed. The sequencing in the footage was chosen to “give the best context,” she said.

Family, advocates want police reform

At a press conference the Ziglar family held Monday alongside Emancipate NC, the family and advocacy group called for police reform and training.

“Things need to be addressed, because when it’s not addressed, next time it will be worse,” Ty Ziglar said. “And the last thing that I want to happen is a child to go through what our family — my son — has gone through.”

Dawn Blagrove, the executive director of Emancipate NC, called on the Fuquay-Varina Police Department to make its manual for procedures more accessible online.

“This is about race,” she said, based on how a white child who was with Ziglar was treated differently, and allowed out of handcuffs in the video.

Blagrove said she has asked the police for all the written reports from the incident to see if they are consistent with what the video showed.

In the video, an officer says, “This probably was not the best way of approaching this.”

Blagrove said because of this, the officers should be held accountable by the town and the police department.

“We hope that upon reflection, they will see the error in their own ways,” Blagrove said. But if there is no change, she said she and the Ziglars will show up at town council meetings to have a seat at the table.

Malcolm Ziglar’s father, Sharndell Ziglar, called for more police training “because clearly this officer was not ready for the situation he was in.”

“I can’t change what happened to my son, but hopefully we can prevent it from happening to any other child,” he said.

Ty Ziglar also said that based on the video, her son believed he was being arrested, not just detained.

“He’s doing OK, trying to get back to normal,” she said. “I’m trying to keep him out of the spotlight, just allow him to be a teenager.”

This story was originally published March 6, 2021 at 10:15 AM.