In December of 2020 US Army 2LT Caron Nazario was allegedly stopped by Windsor, VA police officers under suspicion of driving without a license plate at night. Once flagged by police he proceeded well under the speed limit in a safe manner less than a mile up the road to a well lit gas station. Upon pulling in, two police officers drew their weapons and ordered 2LT Nazario to get out of his vehicle  at gunpoint without informing him of what he had done. Furthermore when 2LT Nazario told the officers that he had his seatbelt on and was afraid to reach in the car the officers sprayed him with mace and proceeded to drag him out of his vehicle.

The already incapacitated Nazario was struggling to see and breathe due to being maced repeatedly and was again subjected to excessive force by being beaten to the ground and handcuffed. Once handcuffed, officers searched his vehicle despite having zero probably cause to search, illegally ran a check on a legally owned firearm in the car that Nazario voluntarily told police officers were in the car, and proceeded to search for any other reason to arrest Nazario. Upon finding nothing to hold him for and realizing their grave error, the officers uncuffed Nazario, and incredulously proceeded to berate Nazario and warn him that if he decided to press charges, they would file charges against him for assaulting a police officer, evading police, and resisting arrest which would get him kicked out of the military. This was an attempt to coerce Nazario under threat of arrest and imprisionment to not file charges so that the officers would not be reprimanded. The entire encounter was captured on the officers body cameras which was on and recorded all video and audio of the event. As of the posting of this petition, the officers are still assigned to the police department. 2LT Nazario has filed a lawsuit against the officers.

Too often we see people of color and citizens have their constitutionally protected rights abused and stripped by police officers who escalate situations that could have been prevented and exercise extreme disregard for human life and the ideals of protecting and serving their communities. These incidents are often "swept under the rug" with no action or consequences for the police officers. The failure to address these negligent and abusive actions by an extremely small amount of bad officers directly endangers the communities they serve as well as the overwhelming amount of good officers that patrol the streets of the US everyday.

The purpose of this petition is to have Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, direct the Attorney General of the State of Virginia, to conduct a detailed investigation into the horrendous events of that night and hold the officers as well as the Windsor Police Department accountable for their actions.