AlterNet – by Rod BastanmehrEarlier this week, a video surfaced online showing a Rochester police officer attacking a young Rochester woman, even though she repeatedly told the officer that she was pregnant. While details surrounding the arrest remain unclear, the video shows the officer using brutal and excessive force while arresting the woman on residential property.
The video shows the officer throwing the woman against a banister and hitting her head as she cries hysterically and screams, “I’m pregnant! Get off me. You’re going to kill my baby.”
Police claim that the woman was arrested because she threatened to use a can of pepper spray on the police after intervening in the arrest of another person. In the video, her 16-year-old brother, Romengeno, can be seen sitting on the steps, hands cuffed, telling the officers that his sister simply can’t have her hands cuffed behind her back because she is pregnant, and falling forward could cause harm to the baby.
The woman has been charged with second-degree assault, resisting arrest, third-degree menacing, and unlawful possession of a noxious material, meaning pepper spray. Then again, the woman’s mother reported that her daughter didn’t have pepper spray on her, so there’s that.
In a press conference regarding the incident and subsequent outcry, Rochester Police Chief James Sheppard praised the officers involved for the level of restraint they used.
Watch the video below. Warning: This video is contains graphic violence.
Rod Bastanmehr is a freelance writer in New York City with a passion for music, film and culture. Follow him on Twitter @rodb.
http://www.alternet.org/police-brutally-attack-pregnant-woman-rochester-ny