Green asked police more than a dozen times if they knew who he was or if they could look up his name on the internet while he was in their custody for more than an hour. He also erroneously told them he was running for Senate, is a “close friend” with Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck, and threatened to make how he was treated an issue in his political campaign.
“When you find out who I am, it’s going to be a problem,” Green told an officer who came to the scene while he was waiting in the back of a police cruiser. “Because I don’t understand why I got put in cuffs … (the officer) could have just talked to me and said, ‘Dion, get in the back seat,’ and I would have gotten back here. It’s very unruly.”
Green told the Dayton Daily News he asked officers if they knew his name or if they could look it up because he wanted them to know about his anti-violence advocacy.
“I fight gun violence,” he said. “I posed no threat to them, and I wanted them to know that.”
Green is a survivor of the Oregon District shooting in 2019 and founder of the Fudge Foundation. The nonprofit is named after his father, who was killed in the shooting, and works to help crime victims.
Green is also running as a write-in candidate for the Ohio House for the district representing northern Montgomery County suburbs. Since there are no other Democrats running for the seat, he only needs 50 votes in the March primary to get his name on the November ballot to challenge sitting Rep. Phil Plummer, R-Butler Twp.
“It’s obvious that Mr. Green thinks he’s entitled to preferential treatment because he’s running for office,” said Wes Farno, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Republican Party, about the footage of Green’s arrest.
Green was charged with counts of OVI and backing without safety linked to a Dec. 17 incident. His attorney, Dennis Lieberman, said he has plans to file a motion to dismiss the case. A pretrial hearing was scheduled for Green’s case on Thursday afternoon.
Green’s SUV reportedly backed into a car that was parked in a lot on Jefferson Street. A passerby flagged down a nearby Dayton police officer.
The officer walked up to Green’s vehicle, which had not left the parking lot, and pointed out damage. Green is shown in the officer’s body camera footage getting out of his vehicle and examining it.
A little more than a minute into his interaction with Green, the officer asked if Green could put his hands on his vehicle while the officer searched for weapons and touched Green’s arms.
“Hold on, hold on,” Green said.
“This is not going to go good for you if you keep it going,” the officer replied.
“Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?” Green said.
“I don’t care, I’m going to make sure you don’t have weapons on you that can harm me,” the officer said.
“I’m saying, let me put my hands up. Don’t force me, brother,” he said.
“You’re going to be detained,” the officer said as he put handcuffs on Green, walking him to a police cruiser.
Green declined any field sobriety or other testing related to his OVI charge while in custody, according to cruiser footage.
He told officers while he was in custody that he felt he was being racially profiled.
“I’ve worked with law enforcement, and I’m glad I’ve gotten to experience this,” Green said. “I’m going to bring up this whole process in my campaign.”
Green’s attorney called his client’s arrest “very alarming.”
Lieberman pointed to concerns with Miranda Rights — cruiser footage captures an officer reading a warning to Green for his refusal of field sobriety and chemical testing, but footage did not capture any officer telling him his rights as a person under arrest.
The Dayton Daily News asked the Dayton Police Department questions about officers that responded to the Dec. 17 incident and what policy exists for the use of handcuffs and the reciting of Miranda rights.
The police department said that due to the case being active in Dayton Municipal Court, it won’t “make any additional comments” related to the incident.
“We are committed to ensuring a thorough and impartial process,” the police department said in a statement to this news outlet.
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