Kenny Coppedge and Jordan Frye, a gay couple from Charlotte, North Carolina, are accusing off-duty police officers of assaulting them and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) is keeping mum on the allegation.
Coppedge and Frye say they were approached by a woman who put her arm around Coppedge, but the woman’s male friends approached and accused the two of stealing from her. The men, who appeared to be drunk, told the victims that they were police officers and pinned Coppedge to the ground.
Related: This trans woman was pulled over. Then her problems with the police started.
“They accused me of stealing from her, put my arm around my back and threw me to the ground and started searching me and telling me he was a cop,” Coppedge told FOX46. “They just kept telling me that they were cops. They were cops and they were going to keep me there until they proved I didn’t steal anything.”
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But when CMPD arrived on the scene, the couple say their assailants spoke to arriving officers and were allowed to leave. The police report filed afterward says the two men were attacked by an unknown suspect.
The men believe their attackers were from New Jersey, but so far CMPD won’t return requests for comment to verify if the accused are cops and if the police department covered up for them.
“The way they were maneuvering us and the way that they pinned us down, it was like they were trained to do that,” Coppedge said. “I want them to be charged.”
