A 21-year-old Rochester man is speaking out after being taken into police custody. He was arrested while recording the arrest of another man.  

Tobias Massey says he and his girlfriend Amari Charles were inside their home shortly after midnight on Sunday when they overheard commotion in the front yard.

“She goes at the window and looks down,” said Massey, “she’s like, ‘get off of him.’ She’s screaming form the window, I decide to go outside.” 

Police say they were called to the area for a report of a man behaving erratically in the middle of the street.

Massey says he acted quickly and pulled out his cell phone to start recording what he saw. A man was being subdued by three Rochester police officers in his front yard. You can hear the man yelling “I can’t breathe, I’m about to die.”

Spectrum News Reporter Natasha Acrie asked Massey: “Can you talk about the emotions running through your mind?”

“That this man was going to die,” said Massey, “and I was going to be a witness and sit here and let it happen. You need to have some type of evidence to show what our people really go through.”

Massey says amid the Black Lives Matter movement, the fear of another case of a Black man or woman being killed by police or dying while in police custody hit too close to home.”

“There are too many people that died,” said Massey, “come on man. I am not going sit here and let nobody die in front of me.”

In the cell phone video, you can hear Tobias and Amari pleading for the Rochester police officers to let the man go.

“And in the video, you can see that I said take me instead,” said Massey. “Not just only that, I am telling them to stop.”

One of the officers told Massey to ‘get back’ then there’s an abrupt ending to the video shared on social media, as the officer attempted to pursue Massey.

"I backed up,” said Massey, “He still lunged at me; tried to grab the phone and I go in the house. They follow me and ‘bum rushes’ into my home. All three at me like I’m an animal. One officer, as you can see, injured me trying to grab me. I’m like, ‘why y'all taking me to jail?’" 

He continued, "Listen they ripped my pants, I still have the clothes on from the incident. I had my leg right here to stop me from getting dragged out the house, because if I didn't you don't know what they would have did. Probably put me on my stomach like they did the man."

Massey says while he sat in the police car, his family tried to get answers for quite some time. His girlfriend recorded everything.

“The officers got disrespectful with me,” said Massey. “Pushed my mom. What are you doing that’s my mother? Don’t want to tell my mother where I am going.”

“What was the first charge?” said his girlfriend Charles. “Why was he getting arrested? That what we want to know.”

Charges have been dropped against Massey but he says there is a bigger issue that needs to be addressed.

"I feel like it's more of looking into them,” said Massey, “seeing the person for who they really are. Not just six months of training in the field. Let’s take them to the inner city; see how they react with these kids. Everybody comes fresh off the boat and in the field, ready to pull that gun out and hit the steel.”

Massey got emotional and paused in reflection during the interview.  

“This has to change,” said Massey, “and I’m going all the way for this.”

The man that was arrested for the initial call was treated at the hospital and then charged with assault for allegedly biting an officer.