An off-duty Pennsylvania police chief was suspended after a video caught him pulling a gun on a motorcyclist. Duane Fisher, Manheim Township Police Chief, confronted a motorcyclist with a firearm on April 30, and was not in uniform.
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Police Chief Suspended After Pulling Gun On Motorcyclist
The video showed up pulling a gun on 24-year-old Benny Pena-Rivera after he pulled over in an alley. He never expected to hear a cop threatening to shoot him behind his back.
“All I heard was, ‘On the ground — on the ground or I will shoot you,'” said the motorcyclist. “If you’re a cop or something, you are supposed to identify yourself and not come up the way you come up to me.”
WGAL obtained the video footage from a business’s surveillance camera in Fruitville Pike. The affidavit of probable cause from the arrest differed from what the video showed and what Pena-Rivera claimed to happen.
It wrote that Fisher introduced himself twice to Pena-Rivera as an officer. The affidavit claimed he was simply trying to ticket Pena-Rivera for having no registration. It also said Fisher called through a private radio explaining why he was following the black motorcycle.
The motorcyclist’s driving was described as “erratic.” It claimed he was driving in and out of traffic, running a red light, and driving on the sidewalk. Fisher radioed that he stopped the motorcycle behind 1917 Fruitville Pike.
But according to Pena-Rivera, this was far from true. When asked if he remembered the cop following him, he didn’t remember it happening.
“I never remembered any of that, none of that,” said the motorcyclist. “If he is saying that he’s following me by the time he got to this point, he should have had his lights on instead of just withdrawing his gun the way he was doing it.”
Aftermath Of Altercation And Arrest
The affidavit mentioned a scuffle between Fisher and Pena-Rivera. The motorcyclist allegedly started up his bike then pushed Fisher. This was not in the video. According to Pena-Rivera, he ran away from the chief.
“I just kept running,” said Pena-Rivera. “I just tried to get out of there as fast as possible to save my life because he was threatening my life at that moment.”
The police arrested Pena-Rivera on May 1, the following day. While he was at a gas station, someone overheard his conversation and tipped off the police.
“Five minutes later, eight, nine, maybe 10 cops pulled up where I was at the moment, and that’s when I got arrested,” he said. “I asked them what was the reason to arrest me, and all they were saying was that I aggravated assault a cop.”
Pena-Rivera pleaded guilty to multiple traffic citations. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the authorities withdrew his charges for aggravated assault, evading arrest, and resisting arrest.
Since the altercation, the township revealed that the chief was placed on administrative leave. This was after an internal investigation.