The Local paper trying way too hard to discredit CMPD Officers

Here is the original story by the "local paper" unedited. CMPD Affidavit follows and Cedar's take at the end. Every Officer needs to read this and understand how the liberal press will spin your actions. 

CMPD officers involved in tasing of pinned man have history of controversial arrests 

By Julia Coin

With his hands behind his back and Charlotte police pinning him to the ground, Kamerin Miller told officers he wasn’t going to move and begged them not to shoot him. Then he felt a block pressed to the back of his neck. Then a shock. Then another. 

Miller was 23 years old and weighed 135 pounds in March 2025, when two Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers weighing about 400 pounds in total pinned down his body and hands while a third officer tased him. That officer — Abdullah Nedawi — was never disciplined, he testified during a five-and-a-half-hour hearing in uptown Charlotte’s federal court this month.

CMPD found both shocks justified. 

But the officers violated both their department’s policies and the Constitution during that arrest, Miller’s appointed attorney argued last week. They ignored CMPD instructions on what they needed for a marijuana search, and then they used excessive force, she said. And it wasn’t the first time they were involved in controversial arrests.

Two of the four officers who arrested Miller also initiated the violent and viral 2023 arrest of Bojangles employees who were smoking legal hemp at a Steele Creek bus stop in 2023. One of those two officers violated a man’s constitutional rights in 2022 by blocking his car when they thought he was smoking or dealing weed, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month. 

Another officer killed a man in a 2024 shooting that was later ruled justified. 

Miller’s arrest is part of a pattern, suggests Kelly Sullivan, an assistant federal public defender. Her filings have revealed details and body-worn camera footage in a use-of-force case that has been shielded from the public for more than a year. 

Sullivan represents Miller in federal court, where he is charged with having an illegal machine gun that fell to the ground as officers tackled him. He now faces up to 10 years in prison. Other than the now-dropped state charges related to this case, he has never faced any other charges, court records show. Sullivan is asking U.S. District Court Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. to suppress all evidence in the case, saying officers found the Glock during an unconstitutional search, an unconstitutional use of force and in the absence of Miranda Rights.

Cogburn, an Obama-appointed judge, is expected to soon rule on the several issues Sullivan raised. Among them, he will say whether he agrees with CMPD’s decision to find Nedawi’s tases justified. 

CMPD declined to answer questions about the Taser use and whether the other officers were disciplined, saying in an email that the department wants “to be respectful of the court’s process” and wait until the case is closed before discussing details publicly. 

Officers’ tactics questioned before 

Nedawi was with CMPD officers Devan Wilson, Kenneth Kludy and Joshua Heater when the group found Miller during a patrol at Sam’s Mart — near the intersection of Steele Creek Road and Interstate 485 — on March 7, 2025. Until now, Nedawi was the only officer who had not been publicly questioned about tactics and use of force. 

Kludy and Heater were the subject of a state investigation in 2024, after they shot and killed a man they say pointed a gun at them. Mecklenburg District Attorney Spencer Merriweather ultimately found the shooting justified and did not charge the officers.

Wilson violated the Constitution, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found last month, when he unlawfully used his car to block and seize a man he thought was dealing or smoking weed in 2022. Two appellate judges on July 7 overturned that man’s two-and-a-half year sentence on an illegal firearm found during what they have ruled an unconstitutional stop. 

Wilson and Kludy also are accused in a recently filed lawsuit of violating the constitutional rights of two Bojangles employees who were arrested for smoking a store-bought hemp joint at a Steele Creek bus stop in November 2023. That arrest ended with another officer (who is named alongside Wilson in the appellate case) hitting one of the employees 17 times. That was 14 times too many, CMPD previously said. (The woman who was struck, Christine Pierre, settled with the city for $25,000, The Assembly reported.) 

The lawsuit filed by the other employee contends the arrest never should have happened. Two years before, in 2021, CMPD’s in-house attorneys told officers they “will need additional evidence beyond the sight or smell of marijuana to establish probable cause” to search or arrest someone. Store-bought hemp and CBD products — legalized both federally and in North Carolina — are indistinguishable from illegal marijuana, police lawyers cautioned.

CMPD’s lab cannot tell the difference, the memo said. Neither can police dogs. 

Gun drops before Steele Creek tasing 

On the fifth floor of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on Aug. 10, attorneys played body-worn camera footage of the March 7, 2025, arrest over and over and frame by frame. Miller — who says he has PTSD from the tasing — struggled through breathing exercises as he watched for the first time the officers’ point-of-view as they held guns flush to his head and repeatedly tased him. 

Testifying in court, officers said they went to the Steele Creek gas station just after 4 p.m. that day because it was a known “hotspot” for drugs. Their duties on the Steele Creek Crime Reduction Unit included patrolling those kinds of places. 

When officers got out of their cars, they said, they smelled marijuana and walked across the parking lot. They found Miller parked in his mother’s black Lexus sedan with another man in the passenger seat. The windows and doors were shut, video shows. Wilson testified that he could see rolling papers and a green leafy substance in Miller’s lap. He could smell marijuana, too, he said.

Police video shows that Wilson knocked on Miller’s car door, pulled it open and told Miller to “get on out.” He did not introduce himself, tell Miller why he was being stopped, ask if Miller was armed or ask for his identification, the video shows. 

Miller got out, then he started to run away. He hadn’t gotten past the car’s trunk when Wilson tackled him to the concrete. 

“Gun! Gun! Gun!” Wilson yelled in a tone that Heater — his colleague of five years — said he’d never heard him use before. Miller’s Glock pistol had fallen to the ground. Wilson and Heater held Miller down, and Nedawi ran over. All three officers pressed their guns to Miller’s skull. 

“I will f*cking shoot you,” one officer said as others told Miller to stop reaching for the gun, video shows. Officers in their reports and in court said Miller pulled the gun from his waistband and got a “shooting grip” on it after it fell. Miller denies that and says the gun fell from his sweatshirt pocket and got hit in the commotion. Body-worn camera footage shows Miller’s hand briefly touched the gun before it went out of camera view.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department body-worn camera footage shows the moment Kamerin Miller’s hand touched a gun that had fallen from his person to the ground on March 7, 2025. Miller and officers disagree on whether Miller unknowingly knocked it as officers tackled him or if he intentionally grabbed for it. U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina 

“Don’t shoot me. Don’t shoot me,” Miller is heard saying. “I’m not [reaching]. I’m not moving. I’m not moving.”

Heater got the gun. Nedawi emptied it and put it on the hood of a car. About 30 seconds later, Heater and Wilson were telling Miller to “stop it!” while holding him to the ground and his hands behind his back. Nedawi then pulled back Miller’s sweatshirt and tased him on the neck. Eight seconds later, Miller’s hands were in the same position when Nedawi shocked him again. 

CMPD’s directives say “officers will not intentionally target the head [or] neck” when using Tasers and that each subsequent shock “requires additional justification.” Policies also allow officers to shock people when they “physically resist being handcuffed” or when an “officer reasonably believes [they have] access to a weapon.”

Officers testified that Miller was resisting arrest and uncontrollable. They said they feared he was trying to move his hands to his waistband, where they feared he kept another gun. They feared for their lives, they said.

Video shows that Miller’s hands were behind his back with his wrists close together when Nedawi tased him. Sullivan argued that officers had control and had subdued him enough.

“Notably, ‘subdued’ does not mean ‘handcuffed,’” she wrote in a motion.

Charlotte police twice used a Taser on a man who was pinned to the ground with his hands behind his back outside a Steele Creek gas station in March 2025, body-worn camera footage obtained by The Charlotte Observer shows. Three of the four involved officers have previously been publicly questioned about their tactics. U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina 

No Miranda Rights, faulty form 

After officers put Miller in the back of a police SUV, they searched his car. Kludy stayed with the handcuffed passenger — lighting a Black & Mild cigar for him and twice putting in back in his mouth after it fell onto the pavement. Other officers asked each other if they were OK. 

“I’m just a little shook up,” Wilson told one officer.

None of the officers had told Miller he had the right to remain silent during or after his arrest. CMPD Sgt. Raymond St John also neglected to read Miller his Miranda rights when he asked Miller “what happened?” and took photos of the Taser marks, video shows. During that conversation — and during others with officers — Miller admitted to having marijuana and insisted he was not trying to get the gun to shoot at officers. None of those statements can be used in court, Sullivan says. 

Miller repeatedly told officers he thought he needed to go to the hospital for the lingering Taser pain. Officers consistently told him the jail had nurses. After Miller asked if he could get numbers out of his phone, Heater had him sign a form releasing his phone to CMPD. 

In reality, Miller wasn’t required to sign that form. Heater never told Miller that. 

After he signed the form, Miller again asked officers: “Y’all really thought I was trying to shoot y’all?” 

They did.

Miller was charged in Mecklenburg Superior Court with three counts of assaulting officers with a deadly weapon, having a weapon of mass destruction, having a concealed gun and having marijuana. The gun was stolen, according to county court records, though that detail is not repeated in his federal charging documents. 

DA Merriweather’s office dropped all the state charges in March, according to a motion to dismiss, because federal prosecutors filed the machine gun charge against Miller. 

One charge left 

Now, that charge is all that’s left. 

Sullivan argued in documents and in court that Cogburn should nullify all evidence in the case. She said officers had no grounds to go up to Miller based off the sight and smell of suspected marijuana alone. She also accused CMPD officers of five times violating the Constitution when they failed to read Miller his Miranda rights, used unlawful excessive force, unlawfully searched him, unlawfully blocked his car with their bodies and unlawfully trespassed on his car when Wilson opened the door without conversation.

Federal prosecutors with Russ Ferguson’s U.S. Attorney’s Office say they are ready to move forward. They admit that Miller was not told he had the right to remain silent and say his statements to officers will not be used in the case. 

But the case shouldn’t be dropped, assistant U.S. attorney Timothy Sielaff wrote, because officers “lawfully seized the machine gun after Miller brandished [it] while fleeing from the officers who were lawfully investigating the presence of marijuana.” 

While CMPD attorneys may have once told officers the smell of marijuana isn’t enough, federal appellate courts have “repeatedly held” that it is, Sielaff says. He also maintains Miller knowingly and repeatedly gave consent for officers to search his phone. 

After attorneys at the end of this month file additional briefs on their respective arguments, Cogburn is expected to decide what will happen to the final federal charge. 

Officers Kludy and Nedawi still work for CMPD, they testified. Sometime after Miller’s arrest, Wilson started working for Gaston County Police Department, and Heater started working for Gastonia Police Department.

CMPD Charging Affidavit

On 03/07/2025 at approximately 1615 hours, Officers responded to 9308 Steele Creek Rd.(Sams Mart gas station). 

Officers arrived this location on routine patrol, this area is known to Law Enforcement Officers as an area of drug sale and purchase.

Upon arrival, parked my Patrol Vehicle on the right side of the gas station near the gas pumps. exited my vehicle and smelled an odor of marijuana. began walking towards the entrance of the Sam's Mart and observed black in color 2003 Lexus es300 (displaying fictious NC license plate/KAB1202, VIN/JTHBF30G330143341) backed into parking space. walked from the rear of the vehicle to the driver's side window and observed black male in the driver's seat of the vehicle. The driver was later identified as Kamerin Miller (Miller). There was an additional black male in the front passenger seat of the vehicle. The passenger was later identified as Deston Worthy (Worthy).

Upon approach of the driver's door, the window was rolled up, and observed Miller and Worthy both with rolling paper in their laps. Both Miller and Worthys rolling papers had large amount of green leafy substance on them waiting to be rolled. 

I know by training and experience that this is common method of preparing marijuana, an illegal schedule VI narcotic, to be introduced into the body.

After this observation made waving motion to Miller and instructed Miller to step out of the vehicle. As the driver's door opened, Miller ducked his head and torso down close to his lap, concealing his hands from Officers sight. As Miller took his initial steps out of the vehicle he began to attempt to run away from the vehicle. In response to this, I used both of my hands to 

wrap around Miller and tackled him to the ground. As Miller and made to the ground Miller used his hand to retrieve tan in color Glock 19x (SN/BSYC908)

from his waist band. Miller gained physical control of the firearm while was struggling to put him in handcuffs. Miller was able to achieve proper firing grip on the handgun. Miller then lost control of the firearm

during the struggle and the firearm laid next to his person. Then additional Officers arrived to assist in detaining Miller. While now Officers were attempting to detain Miller, Miller then used one of his hands and grabbed the firearm. 

This act of grabbing the firearm during the struggle demonstrated to me that his intention was to use deadly force to escape custody. was able to move the firearm from Miller's reach to prevent him from using firearm against Officers. 

Miller continued to ignore verbal commands to place his hands behind his back and actively resist Officers by keeping his arms close to his body, not allowing Officers to detain him in handcuffs. Officers used conducted energy device (Axon taser)to assist in the detention.

After Miller was detained, Officers inspected the Glock 19x firearm and observed that it had switch on the rear of the slide. I know from prior training from the ATF that this Glock switch converts semi-automatic handgun into fully automatic.

The firearm was secured, and Worthy was then detained, Worthy was also found in possession of an AR-15 style firearm.

After the Miller and Worthy were detained, probable cause search of the vehicle was conducted.

located digital scales in the driver's side door of the vehicle. scale was silver in color, scale was black in color. Each had marijuana residue on them. then found an additional black and silver digital scale on the center console arm rest of the vehicle. 25.8 grams of marijuana was located on the dash of the vehicle.

Investigation revealed that the Glock 19X firearm Serial BSYC908 had been reported stolen by Victor McKoy in Greensboro, NC. 

Officers have Body Worn Camera footage of the incident.

Cedar's Take:

First I'm troubled by the Meck DA's choice to "punt" on first down. 

Miller is a bad dude. The paper's insinuation is that since he's never been charged before, he's not a criminal. The liberal press for some reason believes some crime is acceptable. 

The only reason Miller hasn't been arrested before is because he's not been caught. That doesn't mean he's a good kid who loves his momma. You don't go to bed one night as a straight A student with a job and a normal law abiding lifestyle, then wake up the next morning and decide to put a stolen Glock in your pocket, add a "switch" to make it a fully automatic machine gun, buy enough weed to open a dispensary, and drive your Lexus with a fake tag to Sam's Mart on a whim and a wild night of youthful fun.

Every Officer needs to learn from this arrest. These guys didn't do anything wrong. But they could have made it easier on themselves. While the public defenders case is wildly speculative and full of hot air, Officers can use their BWC to their advantage. Mirandize that MOFO a dozen times, note it in your comments and in the documents. When you have probable cause state it on video. Give the what, why and how.

Errors during searches or arrests can lead to crucial evidence being thrown out of court. Juries often decide verdicts based on who they trust and believe on the stand.

Remember sometimes a case comes down to not what was said but what was not said, not what was seen but what was not seen. The last time I checked stupid isn’t a defense, these thugs are stupid prove that fact.

And one more thing..... Let's Be Careful Out There.