TATE COUNTY, Miss. — A Tate County man wants answers after he said two Tate County sheriff’s deputies entered his home uninvited and one demanded he stop filming them.
Cardravious Crump said he had just hosted a Halloween costume party at his mother’s house about an hour before the deputies arrived Sunday morning.
“Party went great. No problems, no nothing, no fights, no anything,” Crump said.
But later that morning, he said he and his mother discovered two sheriff’s deputies had entered their kitchen without asking.
Crump said they mentioned underage drinking even though he said the party had already ended and then said they asked for IDs.
“I asked him nicely to step out. I said, ‘Well then, I can talk to you, but can you step outside?'” said Crump’s mother, Carla Echols.
But Echols said the deputies refused.
“So I cursed him out. I was like, ‘You gonna get the [expletive] out my house ’cause I did not tell you to come in here,'” she said.
That’s when Crump said he took out his phone and started recording.
One of the deputies responds by saying, “You can turn that off. You can turn that off.”
Crump, a 20-year-old business student, said he continued to record as the same deputy continued to demand he stop. It is not illegal in Mississippi to film a police officer.
“You’re gonna turn that off, get that out of my face,” the deputy says.
When Crump asks why, the deputy replies, “Because,” then says, “I just told you to turn it off. I’m not gonna tell you again.”
“I felt violated, being in my own home too,” Crump said.
The video rolls for only 49 seconds because after a final demand to stop filming, Crump finally relents.
“At the moment when he reached around his side, I didn’t know what he was reaching for, so I just stopped recording,” Crump said.
Crump said it turned out the deputy was reaching for his handcuffs, but neither Crump nor anyone else in the house were arrested.
Nevertheless, Crump said his story should serve as a learning experience.
“Learn your rights and don’t let an officer scare you just because he has a badge and a gun,” he said.
Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance said the deputy was wrong to ask Crump to turn off the camera.
“After a preliminary review of the facebook video, as well as the video from the deputy’s bodycam, I can say that my deputy erred in ordering the individual to turn off his camera,” Lance said in an email. “All citizens have the right to film law enforcement in the performance of their duties except in a very limited set of circumstances.”
The department is conducting an internal investigation and expects to have more answers in about a day, he said.