Thousands of people have now seen a six-minute YouTube video of two National Park Service rangers wrestling with a suspect in the sand, trying to handcuff him.
The incident happened on Sunday, May 27, at Ramp 45 at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
It was taped apparently by a spectator who can be heard making comments as the rangers struggle with the man.
Most of the six minutes is about the struggle. And the video starts as the incident is in progress, so a viewer does not know what happened to escalate the situation or how it began.
According to the seashore?s chief enforcement ranger, Paul Stevens, the suspect in this case was walking inside a resource closure east of Ramp 45. A park ranger escorted him out and back to his vehicle when the trouble began.
It is not NPS policy to handcuff and arrest folks who violate resource closures.
According to the report on the incident, Stevens said, the suspect would have been cited by the ranger and given a $150 ticket for violating the closure.
Instead, Stevens said the suspect was ?totally uncooperative? with the rangers from the first encounter with him in the closure.
At one point, while being escorted back to his vehicle, Stevens said, he flung a fishing pole at the ranger.
Back at the vehicle, the rangers tried to calm the man and talk to him about the violation, but the man continued to resist and refused to comply with the rangers? requests.
?It became an officer safety issue,? Stevens said.
According to the report on the incident, Stevens said, he believes that the rangers would have been justified in using more force ? such as pepper spray, a Taser, or a baton.
They did not.
Arrested and taken to the Dare County Detention Center was Mohamed A. Moursy of Knightdale, N.C.
He was charged with:
Interfering with an agency function, which basically is resisting a federal officer doing his job.
Disorderly conduct, which is described in federal regulations as fighting or threatening or intimidating a federal officer.
And violation of a posted resource closure.
Stevens said he did not know if alcohol was involved.
Stevens said that the charges mandate a court appearance, and he could not discuss the incident further or release the report on an ongoing investigation ? at the direction of the Office of the U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of North Carolina.
The accused man now has much a much bigger problem than a $150 ticket. He will be appearing in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle, the overseer of the consent decree.
Then we will learn more details on the case.
For now, the message-board comments with their vitriol and antagonism toward the National Park Service rangers that has gone on — and on and on — is not justified.
The man apparently broke the law by entering the closure. And he apparently did not cooperate with the rangers.
He was not just ?handcuffed for shelling,? as one commenter claimed on a message board.
And, by the way, no one was ?tased? at Ramp 45 that Memorial Day weekend. Stevens said park rangers, who have been trained in the use of Tasers for four or five years, have never used one on a suspect.
Click here to see the YouTube video and remember you are not looking at the beginning of the incident.
