A Fort Worth cop has been placed on restricted duty after video of the officer antagonizing, tackling, and arresting a black mother who called for help went viral on social media.
Jacqueline Craig called police after her white neighbor choked her 7-year-old son when he didn’t follow his orders to pick of a piece of trash off of the ground.
The officer who arrived on the scene apparently sided with the neighbor who just assaulted a child and began to antagonize the mother.
Via NY Post:
“He defied him, so that’s why he did it,” Craig is heard telling the officer. “So I have a problem with that. My son is 7 years old. You don’t have the right to grab him, choke him.”
The straight-faced cop asks only: “Why don’t you teach your son not to litter?”
And when Craig, 46, says she doesn’t believe a littering charge rationalizes the alleged attack, the officer is heard asking one more question: “Why not?”
“Because it don’t,” the stunned Craig replies.
The startling exchange prompted the woman behind the camera — Craig’s cousin Porsha Craver — to remind the officer that she was recording the incident.
Craig tells the cop he “pissed [her] off” and argues that the officer has no idea what she teaches her son at home. The cop then threatens to put her under arrest.
“If you keep yelling at me, you’re going to piss me off and I’m going to take you to jail,” the officer says.
Sensing trouble, Craig’s 15-year-old daughter suddenly tries to intervene and push her mother away, the video shows. But the cop tosses the teen to the side and pulls his Taser. It was not immediately clear if he used the weapon, but Craig, her daughter and their cousin, Brea Hymond, were all arrested, the Star-Telegram reported.
The video of the wild encounter had more than 50,000 shares and was viewed more than 1 million times by Thursday afternoon.
Craig, according to jail records, was arrested for resisting arrest. She also had outstanding traffic warrants, the Star-Telegram reports. Hymond was arrested for resisting arrest and interfering with public duty. Craig’s daughter was released early Thursday, according to attorney Lee Merritt, who said the incident was mishandled from the outset.
Merritt said the officer should have arrested the unidentified white neighbor once he admitted to assaulting Craig’s son.
See the disturbing video below.
The Fort Worth Police Department issued the following statement:
Statement regarding Facebook Video: pic.twitter.com/omjlHFnXxy
— Fort Worth Police (@fortworthpd) December 22, 2016
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