An Oklahoma city manager was caught on bodycam footage talking down to an officer and then threatening to fire him after the cop pulled him over for speeding.
The July 14 footage caught the moments a police officer stopped Daniel Bruton, the city manager of Konawa, Oklahoma.
Bruton, visibly irritated by the traffic stop, informs the cop that he’s working to address a water emergency affecting the town.
“You were just speeding, OK?” the officer tells Bruton.
“Write me a ticket if you want to, write me a ticket,” Bruton responds, before shouting profanities at the cop. “I want you to get your a** back to town!”
“OK, listen to me, I’m just trying to do my job, okay,” the cop says, trying to reason with Bruton.
“I’m telling you right now, you better get in that truck or you won’t have a job!” Bruton yells.
“This is my job. This is what I was hired to do,” the cop says.
“Well, this is my job, and I’m your boss—and I’m in a hurry,” Bruton responds.
“It doesn’t matter. You have to obey the law like everybody else,” the cop states.
“You’re about to not have a job, you understand that?” Bruton threatens.
After more heated back-and-forth, the cop finally dismisses Bruton with not ticket, no citation.
“I’m trying to be respectful with you here,” the officer says.
“Well, I’m not being respectful!” Bruton shouts.
Later that day, the city manager visits the station to further chastise the officer about the traffic stop.
“So let me explain something to you, when I got out of the truck and I told you there was a water emergency, that’s where you should have ended it,” Bruton is heard saying.
“OK, listen to me—,” the cop says.
“I’m not going to listen to you! I’m your boss. You will do what I say!” Bruton interjects.
“It doesn’t matter. You can’t break the law like that,” the officer responds.
“People break the law, and if you have a problem with it, then write me a f***ing ticket,” Bruton answers back.
Frustrated by the officer’s objections, Bruton calls Konawa Police Chief Bryan Russell and says, “I’m firing Jonathan right now,” before telling him his side of the story.
“Who says I can’t fire him,” Bruton retorts after seemingly receiving some pushback from the police chief.
Days after the video from the small town — about 1200 people — some 70 miles south of Oklahoma City was leaked and went viral online, Bruton apologized for his behavior, chalking it up to frustration with the water emergency. The city manager has not been publicly reprimanded for his behavior.
“[The officer] just caught the brunt of that from a situation that day. I didn’t mean anything towards him. He does a good job, and I apologized to him, and I’m making a public apology to him now,” Bruton told KFOR. “I’m embarrassed by it. I’m ashamed of it.”
Bruton hopes that “we can all move past it and I can grow from it as well.”
A former city of Konawa employee said that Bruton’s behavior, as seen on the bodycam footage, is nothing new. She explained how she had similar encounters with the city manager before she was fired from her job.
“I explained to the City Manager that I needed to change what was already posted, and it was time to go home,” said Dedee Clark. “He got very irritated, very agitated, told me it was fine. He told me to close down my computer and go home. He yelled out so loud that the hallway heard him, and multiple people came to me afterwards and said, ‘Are you okay?’”
According to KOCO, the video has triggered calls for changes in the city’s administration.
The officer in the bodycam footage is still employed by the Konawa Police Department.
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