Video Of Rep. John Thompson's Traffic Stop Released

ST. PAUL, MN — Video of an early-morning traffic stop involving Rep. John Thompson in St. Paul was released Tuesday after calls for the footage to be made public.

"You pulled me over because you saw a Black face in this car, brother," Thompson is heard saying in the video. "You looked at me in this car, you looked in this car, and busted a U-turn and got behind this car."

The officer said he pulled Thompson over because his car did not have a front license plate. Thompson was also driving with a suspended license, the officer said.

Thompson, a Democrat, drew criticism from the head of his own party after he claimed at a public event that St. Paul police racially profiled him during the traffic stop.

"I thought we weren't doing pretextual stops in this state. But we are," Thompson told a crowd outside of the governor's mansion July 6 during an event remembering the police shooting death of his friend, Philando Castile.

Days after the lawmaker's comments, St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell publicly demanded an apology from Thompson.

"This stop, made at about 1:20 in the morning, had absolutely nothing to do with the driver's race," Axtell said on Facebook Friday. "The driver, an elected official who does not dispute driving without a front license plate, owes our sergeant an apology."

Ahead of the video's release Monday, Thompson said that "in the video, you won’t see the officer do anything that isn’t by the book, but the issue is we need to rewrite the book."

"I do not know the officer who pulled me over, and I have no reason to believe they have any hate towards me specifically," Thompson said. "Officers do, however, work in a system that has allowed these too often pretextual traffic stops to continue despite tragic consequences."

This wasn't the first time Thompson has caused controversy with his public comments. In August, Thompson was recorded using expletives and talking about "burning Hugo down" during a protest outside of the home of former Minneapolis police union president Bob Kroll.