On Dec 21, Jacqueline Craig called the Fort Worth, TX police to report that her neighbor had choked her 7-year-old son; the cop who arrived was belligerent and dismissive, blamed her son for littering and her for not parenting him adequately, and then, when she became upset at his refusal to take her report, he violently wrestled her and her teen daughter to the ground, cuffed them and arrested them.
This mother reports TO THE POLICE in Fort Worth that a grown man choked her son. In seconds, he is brutalizing HER and her family. pic.twitter.com/kDf7dcAyxW
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) December 22, 2016
Fort Worth Police won’t release the cop’s name or bodycam footage, but they say there’s an investigation underway.
Merritt said the police department did not take Craig’s original report of an assault on her seven-year-old son.
In the video, the officer does not express concern over Craig’s complaints of the man choking her son. After the officer told her to teach her son not to litter, and questioned how she raises her children, Craig raised her voice at the officer, at which point he threatened to arrest her. “If you keep yelling at me, you’re gonna piss me off, and I’m gonna take you to jail,” the officer threatened, with the man accused of assaulting a child standing on the sidewalk.
Following this remark, Craig’s daughter stands in between them, apparently to calm her mother down, and the officer grabs her from behind and pulls her away. Screams break out from onlookers. The officer pulls out his stun gun and pins down Craig, before pointing the stun gun at her daughter and telling her to get on the ground. Both were arrested and escorted to a vehicle around the corner.
Mother aggressively arrested on tape after reporting her son was assaulted
[Mazin Sidahmed/The Guardian]