The Sioux City, Iowa police officer seen aiming a Taser at a Black customer at a Perkins restaurant last month has a reported history of  use of force incidents according to Iowa Starting Line. Since the incident over 5,000 people have signed a petition calling for Officer Thad Boyer to be removed from duty. The officer was rehired in 2019 after brutally assaulting a man in 2004 was seen on video pinning a Black man into a table and threatening to tase him at a restaurant on April 29. The video of the incident was shared on social media, showing Boyer confronting the customer, identified as 29-year-old John Wright.

Wright replied, “I am nice.”

“No you’re not,” Boyer said. Boyer started to get information from the woman who initially called the police then the confrontation with Wright heated up.

“Hey, listen, buddy, do you wanna leave right now?” Boyer asked. In response, Wright challenged Boyer to put his hands on him again.

Boyer told Wright he had to leave. “All right, you’re gonna go to jail if you don’t stand up and leave,” he said.

Moments later Wright gets up to leave gets his jacket and Boyer grabs Wright’s arm and a struggle began. “Hey! Hey! I’m leaving! I’m leaving! This is dangerous! This is dangerous!,” yells Wright as the officer pushes him into a table. Boyer’s body camera fell to the ground, Wright picked it up in and attempted to give it back.

Wright held the camera up yelling “here, here”, Boyer then seen aiming the Taser at him.

“He didn’t do nothing wrong!” a bystander said. “That man ain’t do nothing to you, put your Taser down!”

A press release stated that the taser was raised as a “method to dissuade Wright from active aggression and to overcome his active resistance to his arrest.”

More footage taken by bystanders shows Wright being led out of the restaurant in handcuffs and into a squad car. Onlookers verbally protested the incident.

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