The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in California is investigating the use of force on a Black man and woman suspected of robbing a grocery store, MyNewsLA.com reports.
Video of the incident started to circulate on social media showing deputies from the Lancaster, California Sheriff’s Station placing a man in handcuffs who matched the description of one of the suspects given by the store’s security. Suddenly, one of the deputies approached the woman, who was recording. As she is heard telling the officer not to touch her, he violently slams her to the ground.
This is Lancaster, California.
A Los Angeles county sheriff’s deputy throws a Black woman to the ground and brutalized her for filming them arresting her husband.
Filming the police is not illegal.
This is brutality.
Arrest this pig. pic.twitter.com/BKg9dnZX7M
While in handcuffs, the man yells, “Don’t slam her down like that,” and claims the woman has cancer.
“I was disheartened. That could’ve been my grandmother, my aunt, my sister,” bystander Raycine Ector said. “As you see, the lady in the video was just simply recording her husband’s interaction with the deputies and they came over and attacked her. I would say attack—he grabbed her by her neck and slung her down.”
“That was the allegation—that they had shoplifted a cake,” group member Raquel Derfler said. “So let me be clear, nothing has been proven, but it was alleged…and that’s how they came in hot like that, as though they were brandishing firearms or attacking or assaulting members of the community when it was simply a cake.”
“We take the use of force very seriously and are determined to establish the facts of the incident,” the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. Both deputies have been re-assigned from the field pending further administrative review.
Source: Black Enterprise
