A fired Aurora officer now claims he was “very remorseful” for dismissing the pleas of a Black woman who was left upside down with her hands and feet tied together on the floorboard of his patrol car for 21 minutes.⠀⠀
Officer Levi Huffine was fired in February over the indigent that happened in August 2019. Last week, Colorado police released the video, and Huffine testified at an appeal hearing to get his job back.
According to CNN, the former officer’s bodycam footage showed the woman being handcuffed and taken to a police car. She was later hog-tied using a soft restraint hobble. Officers can be heard, claiming that the woman, identified as 28-year-old Shataean Kelly, was trying to escape.
Kelly, who was detained for “multiple municipal charges” after she was involved in a fight, can be heard pleading for 21 minutes, telling officers “she did not want to die like that,” according to a summary of evidence document posted on the Aurora Police Department’s website.
According to the document, Huffine never stopped driving to check on Kelly or reposition her.
Video from inside of the patrol car showed that Kelly, who was hogtied, slid off the backseat and ended up with her face on the floorboard. She can be heard in the video telling the officer, “Hey, my head is about to break bro, and my neck is about to break bro. Can you lift me up? Hey officer, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, please help me please, please help me please,” she says from the back of the car.
When the car arrived at the jail, a female officer who tried to assist Kelly can be heard in the video telling Huffine, “That didn’t look pleasant at all.” Huffine then replies, “She was in the seat, but she decided she wanted to roll, so.”
Huffine is appealing his termination and testified during an appeal hearing before Aurora’s civil service commission this week.
