Charges Dropped In “Jogging While Black” Arrest

All charges have been dropped against a Texas man arrested for allegedly kicking a police officer during his arrest after being mistaken for a domestic violence suspect, who critics say he looked nothing like. WOAI's April Molina reports.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (WOAI/NBC News) — All criminal charges against a San Antonio, Texas, man have been dropped after he was arrested for kicking police officers during an arrest.

Mathius Ometu, who was jogging when he was detained, later turned out to not be the person authorities were looking for.

Officers placed him under arrest when he refused to provide identification.

“Generally, a person is under no obligation to identify themselves to police during a routine encounter,” Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said when announcing the charges had been dropped.

This comes after San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said his officers “acted appropriately, within their legal authority,” when they detained a jogger who turned out to not be the suspect they were searching for. He issued the statement on Tuesday, just as the San Antonio Police Department released body-camera video of the incident, one week after Mathias Ometu’s arrest.

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