A North Carolina woman says police entered her apartment, handcuffed her and searched her phone after she refused to provide Ring doorbell footage that she repeatedly told officers did not exist, prompting a civil rights attorney to argue that the encounter crossed well-established Fourth Amendment lines.
Attorney John Bryan, host of The Civil Rights Lawyer YouTube channel, reviewed video of the early-morning encounter in Greenville, where officers were investigating a nearby shooting and wanted to know whether resident Uniquea Teel’s doorbell camera had captured anything useful.
The problem, according to Teel, was that the camera had not been recording.
What followed was a confrontation in which an officer threatened to remove the device, seek a warrant and keep Teel awake through the night, before police ultimately entered her home and detained her.
Officers Arrived Around 3:20 A.M.
Bryan said Greenville police came to the apartment complex around 3:20 a.m. after someone fired into an occupied apartment nearby, with bullets narrowly missing two children inside.
Investigators then began checking nearby homes for surveillance footage that might show a suspect or vehicle connected to the shooting.
When they reached Teel’s apartment, officers asked whether she could access her Ring camera.
Teel said the device was dead and had not been recording.
One officer challenged that explanation because the camera was active enough to record the interaction at the door, but Teel continued saying that it had not captured the earlier incident police were investigating.
According to Bryan, the situation should have ended with officers either accepting her answer or pursuing lawful process if they had probable cause to believe relevant footage actually existed.
Instead, the encounter escalated.
“I’m Going To Keep You Up All Night”
Bryan identified the primary officer as Sergeant Jennifer Umphlet and played footage in which she pressed Teel to open the Ring app and prove that no recording existed.
“You pull it up and show me that it’s not working, and I’ll leave you alone,” the officer said. “Otherwise, I’m ripping it off the wall, writing a search warrant, and I’m going to keep you up all night.”
Teel questioned why police could threaten to remove her property when she had nothing to do with the shooting.
Another officer accused her of delaying the investigation and told her she was being detained because she was not cooperating.
Teel said she had been asleep and needed to be at work early that morning, while also telling officers that her baby was inside the apartment.
The footage shows the officers framing the request as something simple that Teel could have resolved by showing them her phone, while Teel maintained that she had already told them there was nothing to see.
That difference is central to the controversy, because refusing consent to a search is not the same thing as destroying evidence or interfering with an investigation.
Teel Says Police Entered And Unlocked Her Phone
Bryan said officers then entered Teel’s apartment without a warrant and placed her in handcuffs.
According to Teel’s account, police retrieved her phone and held it up to her face to unlock it before searching for Ring footage.
She said officers ultimately did not find the recording they were looking for.
Teel later described feeling frightened and confused by the entire encounter because she had been woken from sleep and suddenly treated as though she were somehow part of the crime police were investigating.
“I don’t even know what’s going on,” she said. “Why are y’all looking at me as if I’m part of whatever is going on?”
Bryan argued that the fact police were investigating a serious shooting did not give them unlimited authority to enter a nearby resident’s home and search a device without consent or a warrant.
That is an important distinction, because the seriousness of the underlying crime may explain the urgency officers felt, but it does not automatically erase constitutional protections for uninvolved neighbors.
Greenville Police Opened An Internal Investigation
After video of the encounter spread online, the Greenville Police Department announced that it had begun an internal review.
The department said officers had been investigating a shooting in which someone fired into an occupied apartment and nearly struck two children, and that officers were attempting to obtain security footage from a nearby residence.
Police said they take concerns about officer conduct seriously and placed the primary officer involved on administrative leave while the investigation continued.
Greenville Police Chief Richard Tyndall also said the department wanted to gather all the facts before reaching conclusions.
Bryan, however, argued that the available video already showed a serious legal problem.
He said the department should compare the officers’ conduct with existing Fourth Amendment case law rather than treating the incident simply as a question of tone or internal policy.
Bryan Says The Fourth Amendment Is Clear
Bryan pointed to the Supreme Court’s decision in Payton v. New York, which he said establishes a firm constitutional boundary at the entrance to a home.
Absent consent, a warrant or a recognized emergency exception, police generally cannot cross that threshold simply because they want evidence inside.
He also discussed the exigent-circumstances exception, which can allow officers to act without a warrant in urgent situations such as an immediate threat to life or a real risk that evidence is about to be destroyed.
But Bryan argued that those circumstances were not present here.
Teel was not suspected of participating in the shooting, he said, and officers had no specific reason to believe she was about to delete evidence.
She was simply a nearby resident who happened to have a Ring camera.
A Prior Federal Case Addressed Similar Conduct
Bryan also cited a 2019 Fourth Circuit case involving officers who entered a home and seized electronic devices containing video evidence without a warrant.
Because North Carolina falls within the Fourth Circuit, he argued that the ruling was especially relevant.
In that case, Bryan said the court rejected the idea that police can automatically seize video-recording devices simply because digital evidence can be deleted easily.
The court’s reasoning, as Bryan explained it, was that such a rule would allow officers to enter the homes of neighbors and bystanders routinely whenever someone might have recorded an incident.
The key question is not merely whether evidence could be deleted, but whether officers have a concrete reason to believe it actually will be.
Bryan said there was no such indication with Teel.
He also noted that the officer herself initially threatened to obtain a search warrant, which in his view showed that there was time to seek judicial approval rather than force entry.
Bryan Says Police Could Have Sought A Warrant
Bryan emphasized that investigators still had lawful options.
They could have asked Teel for consent and accepted her refusal, or, if they had enough probable cause to believe relevant footage existed, they could have applied for a warrant.
“They can still get it,” Bryan said. “They just have to follow the Constitution.”
That point makes the incident less about whether police had a legitimate investigative interest in the footage and more about how they tried to obtain it.
Nobody disputes that video from a nearby camera could have been useful in a shooting investigation.
The dispute is whether usefulness alone justified entering a home, detaining the resident and searching her phone without prior judicial authorization.
Bryan Points To Other Complaints About The Officer
Bryan also discussed other encounters involving the same officer that surfaced after Teel’s video became public.
One involved disabled veteran Preston Joiner, who said officers entered his backyard after a neighbor called police while he was outside with his daughter.
Joiner said he was detained, handcuffed and later charged with resisting an officer, although those charges were ultimately dropped.
He also accused the officer of being rude and said overly tight handcuffs caused injuries requiring medical attention.
Bryan additionally referenced another prior arrest involving Anthony Drayton at a Greenville McDonald’s, where video allegedly showed the officer striking him with handcuffs during an arrest.
Those separate incidents have different facts and outcomes, but Bryan argued they make the department’s current internal review more important.
For Teel, the immediate issue remains much simpler: police came to her door in the middle of the night seeking video, she said there was none, and she maintains that officers responded by entering her home and searching her phone anyway.
Bryan’s conclusion was that investigators had lawful tools available to them but chose not to use them, turning a request for possible surveillance footage into a much larger constitutional controversy.
Gary’s love for adventure and preparedness stems from his background as a former Army medic. Having served in remote locations around the world, he knows the importance of being ready for any situation, whether in the wilderness or urban environments. Gary’s practical medical expertise blends with his passion for outdoor survival, making him an expert in both emergency medical care and rugged, off-the-grid living. He writes to equip readers with the skills needed to stay safe and resilient in any scenario.
