CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The issue of race and policing are about to be tackled on the national level. A Senate committee will be looking at ways to try to make encounters between police and minorities safer.
A Charlotte man says he had a frightening encounter with CMPD this week. A tense moment caught on video between police and a driver.
A moment Jose Avelar says a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer took it too far.
"He went from 0-100 real quick," said Avelar.
Avelar was dropping a car off at his brother-in-law's auto repair shop off Atando Ave when police pulled up saying they heard a report about an alarm going off.
Avelar said he was treated unfairly by police.
"He was like 'hey, um did you hear an alarm? Did you see anybody go in that building, it was actually across the street from us'."
The police left but quickly came back, asking for ID's.
"Then he came to me and asked me for my paperwork and I told him 'I don't have to give it to you. I didn't break any type of laws.'"
"He was like 'no you have to give me your ID. If you want to make this a thing you can make it a thing that's when'."
That's when Avelar's wife started recording.
You can see the CMPD officer grabbing Avelar's leg, trying to pull him out of the car.
The officer's body worn camera drops to the ground.
"I was more pissed off than fearful," Avelar says he knows his rights.
"He probably assumed that I didn't speak English, and I was gonna say anything or do whatever he said. Or I didn't know my rights. That happens a lot."
But as all the demonstrators in Charlotte will tell you that doesn't mean those rights will be respected equally. That double standard even troubling Carolina lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
"Why is it that if you are a young black person, man, and the cops pull up behind you, you get really worried and I don't? Tim Scott has been stopped six times on Capitol Hill. I've never been stopped.," says Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.
Calling for an overhaul of policing methods.
Sen. Graham says, "I'm willing to spend a lot of money to get the system to engage in better policing. I am willing to make it easier to fire bad cops who shouldn't be wearing the uniform to begin with."
Avelar hoping that method will trickle down to CMPD.
"They had no business, they treated me like a criminal already without even knowing anything about me or anything like that," said Avelar.
