An Arkansas state trooper who slammed an 18-year-old woman to the ground and punched her in the face during a traffic stop is now facing public outcry and calls for an investigation over his use of force.
Prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump is now representing Osceola resident Alisa N. Hackett, who was pulled over for speeding by Trooper Moisses Arellano on the night of Aug. 1.
Dashcam video of the incident and his use-of-force report reveal that Arellano was at a gas station near Manila, Arkansas, and saw Hackett’s car speeding by with her hazard lights on. He then followed her, clocking her traveling 71 mph in a 60 mph zone.
When he approached Hackett’s vehicle on the roadside, she told the officer she was hurrying to get home because she had a broken car window that was unsafe.
Arellano said he observed that Hackett was not wearing a seat belt and had a sealed, cold bottle of Tito’s vodka on the front passenger seat. Her license showed that she was under 21. She denied drinking any alcohol, and he didn’t notice a smell of alcohol or any signs that she was impaired.
The officer’s use-of-force report, obtained by NEA Report, a northeast Arkansas news outlet, said Arellano initially wrote up citations for speeding, not wearing a seat belt and possession of alcohol by a person under 21. He also told her that her driver’s license would be confiscated and that he’d give her a temporary license.
In the dashcam video, Arellano is seen handing her the tickets and advising her of an upcoming court date. He says in a friendly tone, “It’s time to slow down, OK?”
A few moments after he handed Hackett a form to sign acknowledging receipt of the tickets on a clipboard, he then tells her, sounding perturbed, “You trying to go to jail, ain’t you?”
“If I wanted to go to jail I would not have stopped,” Hackett replied.
After walking back to his patrol car, Arellano called another trooper, who told him that he had stopped Hackett, a “Black chick,” for speeding several days earlier and found an open container of warm alcohol in her car. The other trooper said he had let her dispose of the alcohol and issued her a verbal warning.
Arellano told the other officer that Hackett had thrown a clipboard at him while he was leaning in the front passenger side window talking to her. That, coupled with learning of her recent speeding and alcohol possession, had now made him decide to write her up “for everything” and arrest her.
Arellano tacked on two more tickets for improper use of hazard lights and for improper display of a license plate and called for a tow truck to impound her car. Then he ordered Hackett to get out of her car and put her hands on the trunk, which she did.
As he grabbed her left wrist to place her in handcuffs, Hackett, who was wearing shorts and a tee shirt, said, “Sir, what did I do? I didn’t even do nothing.”
“Don’t resist,” Arellano replied, while trying to get her left wrist into the cuff.
“I need to call my mama,” Hackett said, sounding distressed.
The officer then grabbed Hackett under the armpits and spun her around, slamming her face down to the ground.
Hackett seemed stunned and protested that she wasn’t doing anything illegal and again asked for her mother.
“I don’t give a f—k. Turn around,” Arellano told Hackett, who was now on her back. Then a few seconds later he punched her in the right jaw.
“You can’t punch me in my face!” Hackett complained.
“Said who?” Arellano replied, adding that he was allowed to punch her for resisting, and warning he would do it again if she didn’t turn around.
“I literally did everything you told me to do,” Hackett said, crying.
Arellano’s report said that after giving Hackett multiple commands to roll over without compliance, he “delivered one closed-fist strike to the left side of her face to gain compliance.”
He also said he drew his taser and pointed the laser at her belt line but didn’t fire it. When Hackett saw the laser, she rolled over and placed her hands behind her back, the report said.
After he stood her up and pinned her to the front of his patrol car, Hackett was sobbing and yelling at motorists to call her mother and help her.
“You’re acting like a real child. Shut up,” Arellano said, a few minutes later adding, “You turned nothing into something.”
Placed in the backseat of his patrol car, Hackett told the officer that her leg hurt from being thrown to the ground and that what he did “was not fair.”
“I don’t weigh more than 90 pounds,” Hackett said. “You didn’t have to do that. … You punched me in my face. I am a female.” She continued sobbing and begging him to let her “call my mama.”
After Arellano retrieved her phone from her car and got back into the patrol car, Hackett yelled, “Siri, call my mommy!”
Arellano then said he was turning off her phone.
A tow truck operator came and took away Hackett’s car, seemingly prompting her to stomp her feet on the door of the police car.
An ambulance and emergency medical technicians arrived, and Hackett told them that her mouth hurt where she had been punched, noting that she wore braces. The EMT shone a light in her mouth and said her wires were intact. He also said he didn’t see any visible injury to her mouth or legs.
A few minutes later, the dashcam video recorded Trooper Arellano tell a second officer who had arrived on scene that Hackett had tried to pull away from him, “So I hip tossed her and then she was still resisting, trying to turn around, so I tuned her up.”
“I gave her plenty of chances,” Arellano continued. “She kept trying to turn on me, you know, alligator roll. I punched her once in the left side of the face. I pulled my taser and she saw the laser and finally complied.”
Hackett was then transported to the Mississippi County Detention Center and booked with five misdemeanor charges, including refusal to submit to arrest.
Crump, her attorney, is calling on the Arkansas State Police to open a use-of-force investigation through its Office of Professional Standards and make the findings public, and to release any of Arellano’s prior use-of-force reports.
“This trooper slammed an 18-year-old girl to the ground and punched her in the face,” Crump said in a statement. “He wrote it down himself: a closed fist, because she would not roll onto her stomach. Alisa asked him what she had done, and the video shows what she got for asking. Arkansas State Police have to explain to the public how that is a reasonable response to a teenager at a traffic stop. If you cannot handle a teenage girl without taking her to the ground, cursing at her, and punching her in the face, you should not be wearing a badge.”
The dashcam video has since gone viral this week, drawing criticism from human rights advocates and the general public, while local organizers in Arkansas are calling for Arellano’s termination.
“She repeatedly asked for help and to call her mother,” observed civil rights attorney Lee Merritt on Facebook. “Alisa is a daughter. She is a young woman. She is a human being. Too many times, we have watched routine traffic stops involving young Black people end in excessive and unnecessary force—or worse, with lives taken. No one should have to fear being physically assaulted, harmed, or stripped of their dignity during a traffic stop. Encounters with law enforcement must be grounded in professionalism, restraint, and respect for human life. This should never have happened. Alisa Hackett deserves justice and full accountability from the Arkansas State Police.”
The Arkansas Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident from Atlanta Black Star.
