The white police officer seen in a now-viral video arresting a mother and her two daughters in Fort Worth, Texas, has been placed on restricted duty after protests erupted in the city.
Protesters picketed outside the county courthouse on Thursday, Dec. 22, demanding justice for the three, many outraged over the extreme bias the officer seemed to show during the Wednesday, Dec. 21, encounter.
In the original video posted by Porsha Craver, a woman identified as Jacqueline Craig, 46, confronted a white neighbor after the man allegedly assaulted her 7-year-old son for littering near his property.
The footage shows a Fort Worth police officer dismissing Craig’s claims and questioning her parenting skills, while implying the neighbor had a right to rough up the child.
“My daughter and son came home, saying that this man grabbed him and choked him,” Craig says to the cop as her daughter records. ‘I came around here and asked him. I said, ‘Why did you put your hands on my son?’ He said, ‘Oh, he threw some paper and I told him to pick it up.’ He said he defied him and that’s why he did it. You don’t have the right to choke somebody’s son. My son is 7 years old. you don’t have the right to grab him and choke him.”
A young woman then walked between the officer and Craig and then the camera cuts to Craig on the ground with a taser in her back.
After a nearly 2-minute verbal exchange, Craig, her 19-year-old daughter Brea Hymond, who recorded the incident, and another unidentified 15-year-old daughter wearing a pink tank top were arrested.
Atlanta Black Star reported Thursday that Craig and Hymond were charged with resisting arrest, interference with an investigation and failure to have ID.
With the assistance of attorney Lee Merritt, Craig and her daughters were released on bond. The 15-year-old daughter was released early into the custody of another relative. Merritt told media in a news conference that he will fight to get the pending charges against his clients dismissed.
He also will demand that the department fire the officer who wrongfully arrested his clients. But for now, the officer will remain on restricted duty, according to CBS This Morning.
Days following the incident, reports revealed that the unnamed officer was wearing a bodycam during the encounter. However, the Fort Worth Police Department has not released the footage while an internal investigation is ongoing.
