SOUTH WHITLEY - Criticism against a South Whitley police officer and the department was rampant over the weekend after a video of the officer’s traffic stop of an 18-year-old girl was put online by her father.
In response to the video, the South Whitley Police Department released a statement titled “Town Responds to Social Media Postings Charges Pending for Failure to Identify.”
The video, which totals about six minutes and was posted Friday by Brent Augustus, can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xQrBrN70IM
The incident occurred Jan. 24 and video was obtained by the father through a subpoena, according to a News Now Warsaw story.
In the description of the video, which is a combination of surveillance and body cam video and had over 7,500 views by Sunday afternoon, Augustus states, “South Whitley Police Officer Brian Schimmel claims the driver (my daughter) refused to identify and resisted arrest after being pulled over for speeding.”
The video begins with the teen, Vivian Augustus, being pulled over at a gas station. Information added on the side of the video states the officer’s name, the female’s height, weight and age and that she was charged with speeding, failure to identify and resisting arrest. It also states she was on her way home from school and it was the first time she had ever been pulled over.
The Whitley County Prosecutor’s Office has since reduced the criminal case to a single charge of failure to identify, Brent Augustus told News Now Warsaw in an interview over the weekend.
A clock is started on the video when Schimmel gets out of the car. Within about 18 seconds, he opens the teen’s car door. The conversation between the officer and the girl can’t be heard.
At 1 minute, 21 seconds, the officer reaches into the car and pulls the girl out and puts her face first onto the pavement. The video then shows an image of the girl with what is labeled as her driver’s license near her. At 2 minutes, 8 seconds, she’s sat up and then walked to the officer’s patrol car.
The video then goes to body cam with the officer picking up the driver’s license and then reading the girl her Miranda rights. Further video from the officer’s body cam is then shown, followed by three statements.
Those statements are: “Demand higher standards for training law enforcement who are sworn to uphold the law. Demand that law enforcement know the law they are enforcing!!! Having a bad day is NOT a reason to violate civil rights.”
The statement from the SWPD issued Saturday says, “In response to a social media post of an edited video of a local law enforcement encounter, the South Whitley Police Department notes that it is limited in its ability to offer additional information.
“The social media post and comments suggest a uniformed local officer acted unreasonably in his interaction with a driver pulled over for speeding on January 24, 2024. The incident resulted in a criminal charge and judicial finding of probable cause that the driver committed a crime. Persons charged with crimes are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”
The statement also says, “It is a crime to refuse to identify yourself if stopped for a traffic infraction. Further, a law enforcement officer is authorized to arrest an individual who commits a crime in the officer’s presence. The reasonableness of this officer’s conduct during the arrest is being reviewed.”
The town attorney has advised it is inappropriate to comment on the underlying facts of the incident while they are being reviewed, the statement also says, to ensure the fairness of the process to all parties.
Brent Augustus told News Now Warsaw that he was outraged by the video but said he’s mostly upset with the prosecutor’s decision to move forward with a trial on the single charge and called it a waste of resources. He said he chose to post the video after many in the community kept asking questions about the circumstances.
The South Whitley video is not the first that apparently captures Schimmel in a controversial scene, News Now also reports. Last year, he was videotaped in Monrovia in uniform and working at a race track event when he had an altercation with one of the drivers. That happened in May 2023.

Schimmel joined the SWPD in October 2023, according to a posting on the SWPD Facebook page.