Black Woman Slammed By Officer For Recording Him Arresting A Black Man [Video]

A viral video of a Black woman being violently attacked by a police officer as she recorded him arresting her husband.

The incident unfolded on June 24th outside a WinCo grocery store in Lancaster, California. Authorities responded to the store after receiving reports of shoplifting. Once there, they approached a Black man and woman who matched the descriptions of the suspects. The man was immediately apprehended despite asking multiple times why he was being detained. One officer tells the man he isn’t under arrest, though the bodycam footage shows otherwise.

During the ordeal, the woman began recording on her cell phone, which seemingly set off one of the officers. The unidentified law enforcement agent immediately attempted to grab her arm. When she responded by shoving him away, the officer threw her on the ground and demanded that she stop recording. When she refuses, he is heard threatening to punch her in the face. As the woman is being wrongfully subdued, the man can be heard yelling that she has cancer, though that does not stop the officer from roughing her up.

Tom Yu, an attorney representing the deputies, maintains that the woman was not being slammed to the ground for simply recording. Yu says she would not have been slammed to the ground had she complied with the officers’ commands. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has launched its own investigation into what actually took place. In the meantime, the deputies have been re-assigned.

Activists organized a protest Wednesday outside of the convenience store and are now calling for the aggressive officers to be fired.