Texas cop suspended after viral video shows him threatening to jail a man for driving through a Buc-ee's parking lot

• The Texas City Police Department said it suspended officer Scott Harrell.
• Viral bodycam footage shows Harrell threatening to jail a man for driving in a Buc-ee's lot.

A police officer in Texas was suspended indefinitely after viral bodycam footage showed him threatening to jail a man for speeding in a Buc-ee's parking lot.

Texas City Police Department Chief Landis Cravens said in a statement posted to Facebook on Friday that his first-ever official action as sheriff was to suspend officer Scott Harrell.

The 23-minute bodycam footage shows Harrell stopping Christopher Shull in the parking lot on April 19. Shull first posted the video to his YouTube channel on May 15, but it has since been posted to other channels.

The video shows Harrell stopping Shull in the parking lot next to a gas pump and asking him if there was "Any particular reason why you felt the need to come through the parking lot like that?"

Shull replies that he didn't think he did anything wrong and "just came over to get gas."

The footage shows Harrell telling Shull that he was speeding and "cutting through parking spaces," to which Shull says several more times that he does not think he did anything wrong.

Harrell tells Shull that he is not going to write him a ticket because he is out of paper, but that it is still illegal for him to ignore road signs and signals, the footage shows. After Harrell protests that the infraction was on private property, the footage shows Harrell threatening to take Shull to jail.

"Do you want to go to jail?" Harrell says in the video. "You can go to jail for this."

In Texas, traffic laws do not allow police to write traffic tickets for people who do not obey traffic signals on private property.

After Shull continues to protest, Harrell places handcuffs on him and tells him he is "concerned that you're going to continue this unsafe behavior."

Once Shull is in the back of the police car, he tells Harrell he is sorry and asks if "we can back this down," the footage shows.

"If I don't go and see this through to its conclusion, then I know you're going to go to the police department and file a complaint on me," Harrell says in the video.

After another officer arrives and lets Harrell use his ticket writer, he gives Shull a citation for disregarding traffic control signals and lets him leave.

Prosecutors later dropped the citation against Shull, according to the Houston Chronicle.

According to police, Harrell appealed the police department's decision to suspend him through the Texas police union.

"With that being stated, we are committed to rigorously defending this decision to ensure that our department maintains the integrity you expect and deserve," Landis said in the statement.

Harrell was already facing an internal investigation from the police department's office of professional standards, former chief Joe Stanton said in May.