HENRY COUNTY, Ga. — A video of a former NFL player being arrested by Henry County Police Officers is quickly picking up steam online.
UPDATE: Second video emerges in ex-NFL player's violent arrest | Officer placed on administrative duty
The video, posted to Facebook, appears to shows Desmond Marrow being slammed to the ground before being pinned into a position and apparently passing out.
According to NFL.com, Marrow is a defense back from the University of Toledo and was an un-drafted player by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012. He never made it out of pre-season, and it was his last time suited up for any NFL team.
In the video, which doesn’t have a date stamp, Marrow appears to be handcuffed. With his hands cuffed behind his back, one officer lifts his right leg and they throw him to the ground.
Someone, apparently the person shooting the cellphone video, can be heard saying “this is unbelievable."
Soon after, one officer can be seen kneeling near Marrow's head and grabbing him by the throat. At one point, Marrow can be heard saying “I can’t breathe.”
Marrow then appears to go limp, but there's really no confirmation if he's in or out consciousness.
On his Facebook page, Marrow says officers claimed he had a gun in his pocket, but he says it was only a cellphone. He also wrote that police "knocked my teeth out, slammed me on my head and choked me out until I was unconscious. In addition I suffered a shoulder strain and a concussion."
11Alive reached out to him to get further comment, but he declined to speak Thursday night. However, he did write in the post that "I was fully cooperating with the officers with ZERO resistance. I thought I was going to die. I was sure I was passing out or dying."
There is no video that shows what led up to the arrests and no video that shows what happened afterwards.
11Alive’s Ron Jones is a former police officer, and after watching the video had a few questions.
Number one, was whether there is any body cam video from the arresting officers that shows the interaction from start to finish. Second, is why Marrow was being arrested in the first place.
11Alive reached out to Henry County Police Thursday evening to get the answers to those questions, but they said they would not be able to answer anything until Friday morning.
However, 11Alive did get the answer to the second question. According to a police report dated Dec. 2, 2017 obtained by 11Alive, the situation may have started as a road rage incident that escalated on Marrow's part.
The report states Marrow was driving on Jonesboro Road over I-75 when someone in another car threw a cup of coffee at his car. That's when Marrow reportedly started aggressively chasing after the car to a McDonough shopping center.
An officer happened to witness Marrow driving aggressively and followed the car.
When the officer got there, Marrow and "several others" were in the parking lot apparently in the middle of an argument. The officer asked if anyone had thrown any punches, then asked for Marrow to stop using profanity. While discussing with the officer, a witness apparently said he overheard Marrow say he was "going to shoot them."
By that time, other officers had arrived on scene. Officers asked Marrow if he had a gun, and he told them no. One officer patted him down, and no weapon was found. However, because of the alleged threats against others' lives, officers told Marrow they were going to arrest him. At that point, officers said Marrow refused to cooperate, and the struggle between he and the officers began.
Officers were eventually able to take Marrow into custody where they charged him with making terroristic threats, reckless driving and aggressive driving.
