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CMPD responds after Moral Monday confrontation

CHARLOTTE — The Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department responded to calls for the police chief to fire one of his officers after a video showed the confrontation between a community activist and two police officers during this past week’s Moral Monday rally.

IMAGES: Moral Monday protest uptown

Ty Turner shot video of his encounter with the two officers Monday.

Turner says he was distributing fliers when the officers approached him, said he was breaking the law and ordered him to stop.

Turner says he asked the officers what ordinance he was violating.  He says one of the officers, David Tropeano, got upset, so he took out his phone and recorded what happened.

Turner says Tropeano placed him in handcuffs and drove him to an empty parking lot about a block away.

"They left me in the vehicle, they were upset and they rolled the windows up in 90 degrees and I sweated," says Turner.

Turner says officers then drove him to the Mecklenburg County Jail, but before he was booked, he was released and given only a citation.

Man handcuffed, released during Charlotte Moral Monday protest

Late Wednesday, CMPD released its own video of the exchange between Officer Tropeano and Turner.

"Do I think this rises to the level of an officer losing his job? Well what we see is he did not violate the law," says Chief Deputy Kerr Putney, with Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.

Members of the NAACP held a news conference about the incident.

They plan to hold a meeting with police officials Monday at 1:30 p.m. to urge them to fire Officer Tropeano.