It’s eerily reminiscent of the Eric Garner case, except, Elonte McDowell lives to tell his story. 

The 25-year-old Illinois man was stopped on Saturday (August 24) by police officers, who say they were tipped off to him driving with a “load of drugs” in his vehicle. 

While he admitted to NBC News that he did have marijuana in his vehicle, he and his girlfriend, Alyssa Retuerto, questioned the excessive force used during his arrest. 

Retuerto posted a disturbing video of the arrest to Facebook on Monday (August 26), which shows him yelling for her to record the incident as one officer had him in a chokehold and two others handcuffed him. A fourth officer with a K-9 then shoots him with a stun gun.  

“You’re okay, big boy. That’s a nice fake,” one officer can be heard telling McDowell, who appeared to briefly lose consciousness.

“He has a pulse right? Because look at his face,” Retuerto asked the officers. None of them checked his pulse. 

“The defendant in the video you provided was charged with felony drug offenses and resisting arrest by DeKalb City Police this past Saturday,” the DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott said in an emailed statement to NBC. “The officer who activated the taser was a Deputy from our office who was assisting DeKalb City Police.” 

After a sniff search of the vehicle, the K-9 detected drugs, and officers found the cannabis after performing a search of the car. 

“The defendant in this case was processed by DeKalb City Police and transported to the County Jail in Sycamore. He was released on bond the following day,” Scott’s statement included. 

The chokehold was prohibited in 2015 “unless deadly force is justified.”

The video, which has been shared on Facebook, came out about one week after the officer responsible for Eric Garner’s death by chokehold, Daniel Pantaleo, was finally fired five years after the incident. 

“The unintended consequence of Mr. Garner’s death must have a consequence of its own,” New York Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said. “It is clear that Daniel Pantaleo can no longer effectively serve as a New York City police officer.”