Eutaw, AL -       ABC agents arrest of a Eutaw grocery store manager is coming under scrutiny.  The incident was recorded by Edgars grocery store's surveillance camera.  ABC 33/40 obtained the video Thursday.  It shows 60-year old Alphonso Morton on the telephone behind the store's service counter.  At first, one agent is standing with him.  Then, two other agents appear and all wrestle Morton to the floor and place him in handcuffs.  That scene lasted approximately  one minute.  It started at the register.  The agents with the state's Alcohol Beverage Control Board were conducting an underage compliance check.  A teenager seen in the video gives the clerk her I.D.  When noticing she's underage, the clerk calls over Morton and he takes the I.D. the service desk where he was arrested.  Morton tells ABC 33/40 he was simply doing what his boss had instructed him to do.   In an interview with ABC 33/40, the arresting agent Robert Barton says Morton was given orders to hand over the license after his clerk passed the compliance test.  "When he didn't, he was arrested," Barton said.  Morton's boss Dan Edgar, who owns the store says he believes the arrest was not necessary and "excessive...the way they three him to the floor."  The Greene County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is calling for a federal investigation in the arrest. The SCLC leaders have scheduled a news conference for Friday morning.  Meanwhile, Morton says he suffered mild injuries in the arrest and went to the emergency room after the store manager bonded him out of jail.  ABC agents say they maintain the were following protocol and Morton disobeyed the orders of law enforcement.  He faces charges of resisting arrest and Interfering with government operations according to his bond release.  Stay with ABC 33/40 for more on this developing story.

 

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