Officials in Florida have dropped the charges against Kianna Cooper, a Black woman who a Broward sheriff’s deputy said assaulted him.
Cooper was previously arrested and charged with resisting an officer with violence and battery of a law enforcement officer for the May 7, 2022, incident in Pompano Beach, Florida. That day, Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputy Steven Davis was responding to an assault that stemmed from a confrontation over parking spaces, and bystanders said Cooper was involved.
Body camera shows Davis walking up to Cooper’s car while she’s on the phone with her mother. Her car was parked in a parking lot at the time.
“You got an ID on you, ma’am?” Davis asked.
“Why am I giving my ID?” Cooper responded.
“Because I asked for it,” he shot back.
Cooper then expressed that she was starting to feel uncomfortable about the situation when David said he would arrest her if she didn’t comply.
“Do you hear this, Mom? I’m waiting on my friend, and now I’m about to get arrested because I’m refusing to give ID,” Cooper said. “What did I do? These people could kill me, Mom.”
“Ma’am, I’m going to ask you one more time, then I’m going to pull you out of the car,” Davis said.
Seconds later, he opens the car door and yanks her out of the vehicle. At that point, he tackled her onto the pavement.
“You’re not going to fight me. What are you doing?” Cooper said. “What’s wrong with you? You just hit a woman?”
In court last July, Cooper said that Davis struck her multiple times. Photos obtained by “Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey” show her black eyes and bruises on her arm and neck area. Davis argued that he pulled her out of the car because she was not following orders, according to reports, and that she attacked him, causing his head to bleed.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported last month that Assistant State Attorney Lindsay Carrier concluded that there wasn’t blatant evidence in the body camera footage that suggests Cooper harmed Davis. The prosecutor pointed to how Davis has different accounts of what happened and how he got his injury.
“He reached into her vehicle, opened her car door, and removed her from her vehicle to prevent her from fleeing the scene,” Carrier said in a memorandum, the outlet reported, adding, “The BWC [body-worn camera] does not capture Ms Cooper attempting to start the vehicle or drive forward.”
In addition, in one of his statements, David claimed that Cooper was “gesturing at bystanders as well as threatening them with bodily harm or violence.” However, bystanders did not back up that accusation, nor did the body camera show it, according to the report.
