North Carolina deputies criminally charged for choking, assaulting man during arrest
A Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office sergeant and a former deputy were both charged for assault Thursday connected to a violent arrest where one repeatedly punched, Tased, and grabbed a man by the throat.
Following a months-long investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation, Rutherford County District Attorney Ted Bell charged Sergeant Alden (Joe) Sutton with simple assault, the sheriff’s office said. Former Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office deputy Tyler Thompson was charged with assault inflicting serious injury. He was fired by the sheriff’s office in 2022.
On May 28, deputies arrested Barry Spencer Green outside his home for driving while impaired, resisting arrest and assault on an officer, according to a release by the sheriff’s office.
Body camera footage released in August shows Thompson punching, choking, and using a Taser on Green while he is handcuffed. A female deputy is also present during this encounter.
Sutton and Thompson were suspended last year pending an internal investigation into the use of force, The Charlotte Observer reported at the time.
The Sheriff’s Office declined to provide additional comments about the charges.
What the body camera footage shows
In May, deputies confronted Green after a road rage incident on N.C. 73 in Iron Station, the Sheriff’s Office said in a previous news release.
Body camera footage shows Green arriving home, exiting his vehicle, and speaking with officers. He attempts to go inside the house but officers stop him and say they need to speak with him about where he is coming from.
The footage shows Green walking away to enter his home, Thompson grabs him, and they continue to speak.
“I’m going to bed,” Green tells officers.
“We’ve got to address something first,” the female officer responds.
“Address what?” Green asks.
“Where are you coming from?” she replies.
As Green is speaking with the female deputy, Thompson grabs him and punches him, Green falls to the ground. Thompson grabs Green by the front of his neck while Green is on the ground.
Green sits up and Thompson punches him several times and grabs him by his neck again.
“Get on your f---in’ stomach,” Thompson orders Green before the deputy shocks Green in the stomach area with a Taser, the footage shows.
Sutton approaches Green and Green tells him to “Watch his career.”
The two exchange words, Sutton asks Green for his name, and Green tells Sutton “You ever touch me again..” and Sutton shouts at him.
“Sit down!” Sutton yells as he grabs the handcuffed Green by his neck. “And don’t ever, ever, f---ing threaten me again!”
A whistleblower?
In a previous interview with WBTV, which first reported the violent incident, Thompson said he had to use force to handcuff Green. He also told WBTV he wrote that information in Green’s arrest report he shared with the SBI.
Thompson calls himself a “whistleblower” and believes the reason he was fired was for going to the SBI and asking for an investigation.
“I am not the hothead they have given me the reputation of,” Thompson told WSOC. “It’s all about doing the right thing.”
Sheriff Bill Beam disagrees with Thompson and told the station he is an aggressor not a whistleblower.
“He beat this guy’s eyes shut,” Beam told WSOC at the time. “He was counseled, he was written up and the last straw, he was terminated.”
Thompson was fired in August after the department said he was “related to a series of excessive force incidents,” according to a sheriff’s office news release at the time that didn’t provide additional details.
