Newly released police bodycam footage provides different perspectives of when Milwaukee Bucks basketball player Sterling Brown was tased — and shows officers casually joking, wondering about overtime pay and warning one another of a "media firestorm" over the athlete's arrest.
The Jan. 26 incident gained wider attention last month when the Milwaukee Police Department provided a 30-minute video showing officers arresting Brown in a Walgreens parking lot. Police were investigating why his car was parked in a handicapped spot, but it escalated when several officers came to the scene and one used a stun gun to subdue Brown.
The department did not pursue criminal charges against the NBA player, although Brown has said he plans to file a federal lawsuit against the city.
In the new videos, which were taken from four police officers' bodycams and obtained by NBC affiliate WTMJ, Brown is seen on the ground as an officer puts his foot on Brown's ankle.
"You're stepping on my ankle, for what?" Brown says.
"So you don't kick us," the officer responds.
"I ain't got no reason to kick y'all, man," Brown tells him.
Another officer recognizes Brown.
"What you think? I look familiar, don't I?" the 23-year-old Bucks shooting guard says.
Later, an ambulance comes to take Brown, who suffered bruises to his face and on his back where he was tased. An officer is heard calling his shift commander to inquire about overtime. He then sings the "money, money" lyric from the O'Jays song, "For the Love of Money."
Two officers in a squad car are also heard on video discussing the optics of arresting an NBA player.
"Because he plays for the Bucks, if he makes a f---ing complaint, it's going to be a f---ing media firestorm," one of them says.
"Oh yeah," the other responds.
"And then any little f---ing thing that goes wrong is going to be, 'Ohhh, the Milwaukee Police Department is all racist, blah, blah, blah,'" the first officer continues.
In another clip, officers can be heard joking about the arrest.
"See you on the news, and me," one says.
"Woohoo! All right," the other says, laughing.
In the aftermath of an investigation, eight officers were disciplined with three receiving unpaid suspensions.
At a news conference last month, Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales apologized for Brown's arrest and said mistakes were made in how officers handled what was simply a parking violation.
In a new statement, Morales only addressed that the latest footage was solely released to Brown's attorneys. He did not immediately comment about the content of the new videos.
Neither Brown nor his attorneys could be reached for comment Tuesday.
Brown had previously tied what happened to him to past cases of unarmed black men being confronted — and even killed — by police: "Dontre Hamilton of Milwaukee, Laquan McDonald of Chicago, Stephon Clark of Sacramento, Eric Garner of New York, and the list goes on," he said in a statement last month.
Brown said the officers' actions have "forced me to stand up and tell my story so that I can help prevent these injustices from happening in the future," adding, "Situations like mine and worse happen every day in the black community."