The National Park Service is investigating an incident that saw a park ranger use a Taser on a Native American man walking off-trail, The Washington Post reports.
Darrell House was walking through the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque on Sunday with his dog and sister when he walked off the marked trail.
House, who identifies as Native American, says that he does this frequently so that he can pray on what he considers to be his ancestral home.
However, this time, he was confronted by a National Park Service ranger, whose bodycam footage shows House providing a false name. A few minutes later, the incident had escalated and House was tasered.
Watch the incident unfold below:"Stop!" House pleads with the officer in a video, which was recorded by his sister. "I don't have anything, sir… I'm a peaceful person."
The footage was subsequently uploaded to Instagram where House accused the ranger of abusing his power to injure him and his dog.
"This could have been a civil interaction," House said in the post. "The law doesn't work for the Indigenous."
An investigation into the case was opened up by the National Park Service, and on Tuesday, bodycam footage from the ranger was released, which showed House and his sister giving him false names and birth dates.
"Prior to the officer using his electronic control device, or taser, the officer attempted to resolve the interaction with an educational contact and simple warning," the National Park Service said in a statement.
"During this initial interaction, both individuals provided fake names and dates of birth to the officer."
Additionally, the nearly 10 minutes of body camera footage shows the unidentified officer approaching House and his sister to talk "about the off-trail stuff".
The ranger can then be heard telling the pair: "You guys got to stay on the trail. All right?"
He then asks the brother and sister not to hop on the rocks, because they are "super sacred to the tribes".
Per The Washington Post, the monument is home to more than 25,000 petroglyph images carved by Native Americans and Spanish settlers 400-700 years ago.
House has since defended his actions to NBC News, claiming that as a Native American, he has a right to freely worship where he chooses and this includes areas closed to the public.
In an interview with NBC, House said: "I didn't see a reason to give my identification. I don't need to tell people why I'm coming there to pray and give things in honor to the land. I don't need permission or consent."
House told KRQE that when he and his sister were walking their dog, Geronimo, they saw a large group of people ahead of them and decided to walk through a blocked-off area in order to maintain social distancing.
"[The ranger] wanted to show power, dominance, keep me in order," House told KRQE. "That’s what authority figures are trained to do, to keep people like me in order. To make the 'Indian' look crazy, to make them look insane."
The National Park Service has since stated that internal affairs investigators will be interviewing the officers involved, speaking with witnesses, and review all footage of the incident.
