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Lawrence police actions questioned after traffic stop caught on camera

LAWRENCE, Mass. — Lawrence residents and others are calling out several members of law enforcement after a Facebook video was posted showing officers pulling a man from a vehicle and screaming obscenities at teens.

It was around midnight Friday when a group in a minivan was pulled over at the intersection of Oxford and Lowell Streets.

A passenger recorded video as Andrew McGratty was pulled out of the front seat and arrested.

“He didn't give me a chance to open the door,” McGratty told FOX25. “He didn't even give me the opportunity to get out of the car, he just pulled me out.”

In a Facebook post, Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera defended the police officer in the video and accused the occupants of the vehicle of circling the neighborhood in order to buy drugs.

Rivera said "the police stopped them before they could buy their drugs" and called the video "not pretty, but not inappropriate."

Those in the vehicle said they were just passing through Lawrence on their way to New Hampshire, but Mayor Rivera’s post said that can’t be possible.

“The intersection of Oxford & Lowell Streets is not a short cut to Methuen or New Hampshire. They were their (sic) to buy drugs,” he wrote.

Neither Oxford nor Lowell streets lead north. But just blocks away is Route 28, which takes drivers into Methuen and then across the New Hampshire border into Salem.

McGratty said he now has wounds on his knees and arms from the arrest, and police have nothing to show for their actions.

“Once they took me out of the car and threw me in the cruiser they didn't even search the vehicle or anybody else,” he said.

Mayor Rivera told FOX25 he stands by his post.