Medford Police Officer Threatens Driver In Dashcam Video

Medford police confirmed that Detective Stephen Lebert was put on administrative leave Monday after the driver’s dash cam video surfaced showing Lebert threatening to “blow a hole through [the driver’s] f-ing head”.

The driver, identified only as a software designer named Mike, said he had gotten lost and went the wrong way through an unfamiliar traffic circle in Medford, Massachusetts, on Sunday evening moments before the incident occurred.

But Sacco added that he had personally reprimanded LeBert over the 2012 video, in which a man used his cellphone to record police as they interacted with his brother.

The video shows LeBert pulling up next to Michael in his pickup truck, coming to a stop next to the RE/MAX Andrew Realty office at 12 High St.

“When an officer stops a vehicle, he’s carrying out his duties in a public place”, Sarah Wunsch, Deputy Legal Director of American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLUM), told Boston.com.

The driver then told LeBert that he had the entire incident on his dash cam, and LeBert responded that he would be seizing it as evidence. “There was nothing”, said the driver in an interview with CNN affiliate WHDH.

Mike pulls into a parking space and Lebert approaches him again and begins yelling and swearing at him. “That guy can’t be a cop and act like that”, Mike said.

“You’re lucky I’m a cop because I’d be beating the f***ing p**s out of you right now, ” Lebert said as Mike tried to explain he didn’t realize Lebert was a cop and that he didn’t see the traffic sign. The driver could be heard throughout the video saying that he became confused by the traffic circle.

The dashcam footage belongs to Mike, who posted the video to YouTube soon after the incident.

MIKE: “Okay, I just wanna let you know I also have a dash camera”.

The next day, Lebert was placed on paid administrative leave, pending an internal investigation, Medford Police Chief Leo Sacco said.

“He’s a 30-year member of the department and works in our detective division”, Sacco said of the detective.

The man behind the wheel said it looked like a movie: another man in a tank top and shorts fumbling in his waist band and shouting.

When a backup cruiser arrives, another unidentified cop approaches Mike and says that Lebert is a detective with the department. “Just two weeks ago he solved seven housebreaks”.

Michael said that after this incident, he feels that he can not go to the police to report bad behaviour from their officers.

“That’s not proper behavior, but we only know about it when people tell us”, Sacco told CNN affiliate WFXT.

“He was called in and advised people do have a right to take a video, ” Sacco said. “And unfortunately, we had to get up this morning and see it on a YouTube video”.

CNN was unable to reach LeBert for comment.