A Texas police chief personally helped detain a man outside his own home — over what the department called an apparent traffic stop. Then came the line that turned a local call into a viral firestorm.
“I’m the police chief, so deal with me.”
That’s what Sour Lake Police Chief Aaron Burleson told Kendrick Bates during the encounter, according to Bates and the video his wife recorded outside their Hardin County home. The footage spread across Facebook with thousands of comments, and now the city itself is seeking an outside review of its own chief.
What the video shows
Bates says he was pulling into his own driveway when the chief and a second man — in civilian clothes, not uniform — moved in to stop him over an apparent traffic violation. The video shows Bates eventually in handcuffs, and shows Burleson grabbing him by the neck during the detention. Bates says the neck grab left him in pain.
“I ran to stop signs, I don’t feel like that warranted anything that they did,” Bates told KFDM, describing his drive home as uneventful until the moment he pulled in.
His wife filmed the encounter from the yard and posted it online. Within days it had drawn thousands of comments and news coverage across Southeast Texas — a two-minute local story that stopped being local.
The review — and the disagreement
The city of Sour Lake has now requested an outside review of the incident and its chief, according to the Houston Chronicle — a remarkable step for a department this small.
Not everyone sees a scandal. Former Port Arthur police chief Mark Blanton reviewed the footage for KFDM and called the officers’ actions justified, saying the detention fell within police authority. That split — a veteran chief saying the law was followed, a family and thousands of commenters saying it plainly wasn’t — is exactly what the outside review will have to settle.
The questions the review has to answer
Can a chief conduct a traffic stop in civilian clothes, at a private residence, with an unmarked approach? What department policy governs physical contact with a handcuffed detainee? And why did the city’s own leadership decide the answer required someone from the outside?
Bates, meanwhile, hasn’t been charged with anything connected to the stop. The video is still up. The comments are still coming. And the chief’s own words — “deal with me” — are now the reason the city is dealing with him.
#OhDangReally
