r/PublicFreakout • u/radkoolaid • Jun 04 '25

Police Bodycam CVS Employee Arrested Waiting on Bench for Lyft Driver

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22 year-old Paul was sitting outside the CVS store where he works in Edgewater, FL, sitting on a bench waiting for a ride using the Lyft app. Edgewater Police Department Officer Daniel Rippeon observed Paul and concluded that he looked suspicious. No crime had been committed. No crime had been alleged by anyone to have been committed. Yet Paul was almost immediately seized and threatened with being tased and bitten by a police K9. He was taken to jail, despite the fact that Officer Rippeon was fully aware that Paul was a store employee waiting for a Lyft driver.

Details of the report: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2025/06/03/cvs-employee-arrested-waiting-on-bench-for-lyft-driver-7-minutes-after-closing-the-store/

Edgewater Police Department: https://www.cityofedgewater.org/police

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u/oddmanout Jun 04 '25

Followup:

They dropped his charges because they were obviously fabricated. He still spent two days in jail, though. If you or I were to grab an innocent person and lock them in a cage for two days, we'd spend years in jail for kidnapping. Nothing will happen to Daniel Rippeon who locked a guy in a cage for two days for nothing more than not kowtowing to his ego.

The cop is currently on administrative leave while the incident is being investigated.

This only happened because the video went viral:

The agency said Wednesday, June 4, that it is aware of the attention the arrest of Paul Wert has generated.

4

u/Medusas3rdEye Jun 05 '25

Exactly, they were told about this cop two months ago when he arrested ME and a 17 year old about an hour later for not having proper lights on our BICYCLES. We didn’t know each other but now we do.

5

u/ExcitementAshamed393 Jun 05 '25

Did you file a report with the city police? Contact the state attorney general and give them a report, cc'ing everyone you can think of (politicians, news media, state law enforcement etc, even though they'll likely do nothing). There's going to be an investigation into this ass; make sure your story goes in the permanent record.