A North Carolina police chief broke silence and shed a little more light on a viral video showing a cop in his department repeatedly punching a Black woman under arrest.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief Johnny Jennings told the public at a press conference this week that he understands the “outrage” and “emotions” that the video has ignited. The chief has temporarily reassigned the officer pending an internal investigation, according to CNN.
Jennings conveyed that the entire encounter never “should have happened” but also questioned the matter of accountability in the incident.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Jennings said of the incident. “But whose responsibility is the question, right?”
In the video, a woman, now identified by her lawyer as 24-year-old Christina Pierre, was held down on the ground by several Charlotte-Mecklenburg officers as one cop is seen battering her with his fist several times. Bystanders were heard yelling and criticizing the cops in the background.
Police say the encounter escalated after two cops on patrol saw Pierre and her fiancé, Anthony Lee, smoking marijuana at a bus stop. Police said that they began arresting Lee, but Pierre interfered and “struck an officer multiple times.”
The chief considered whether officers should have initiated arrests for marijuana use “even though we can” and whether the woman should have interfered with the man’s arrest and hit officers, according to The Associated Press.
Pierre reportedly continued to resist arrest and ignore verbal commands as officers worked to restrain her. That’s when one officer “struck” her “seven times with knee strikes and 10 closed fist strikes to the peroneal nerve in the thigh to try to gain compliance.”
Police said the officer was intentional about where the strikes were made, a statement that Jennings echoed after seeing bodycam footage.
“There’s nothing that shows that she was struck…
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