Yahoo News – by Jason Sickles, The Lookout
A southeast Texas town with a history of racial unrest on Monday fired two white police officers recently captured on video slamming a black woman’s head into a countertop and wrestling her to the ground.
“The amount of force used was abominable,” the woman’s attorney, Cade Bernsen, told Yahoo News.
The incident was captured by security cameras at the Jasper, Texas, police headquarters.
Keyarika “Shea” Diggles, 25, was brought to the jail on May 5 for an unpaid fine, according to Bernsen. He said she was was on the phone with her mother trying to arrange to get the $100 owed when Officer Ricky Grissom cut off the call.
There’s no audio on the video, but Diggles and Grissom were apparently arguing when Officer Ryan Cunningham comes in behind Diggles and attempts to handcuff her. When she appears to raise her hand, Cunningham grabs Diggles by the hair and slams her head into a countertop. The officers wrestle Diggles to the ground before dragging her by her ankles into a jail cell.
“She got her hair pulled out, broke a tooth, braces got knocked off … it was brutal,” Bernsen said.
Diggles was charged with resisting arrest for arguing with the officers, a charge dropped on Monday, according to Bernsen.
Cunningham, reached by phone Monday afternoon, hung up on a Yahoo News reporter. A message left for Grissom was not immediately returned.
The officers’ firing comes 15 years to the week after an infamous hate crime in Jasper, a town of about 8,000 people two hours northeast of Houston. James Byrd Jr., a black man, was tied to the back of a pickup by three white men and dragged for several miles until he was decapitated. The high-profile case triggered marches by the New Black Panthers and Ku Klux Klan.
Last year, a majority-white Jasper City Council fired the town’s first black chief after 16 months on the job. Rodney Pearson is now suing, claiming his civil rights were violated.
“It’s a different part of the world, man, it’s crazy,” said Bernsen, who’s also representing the fired police chief.
Jasper’s interim city manager confirmed the terminations, but referred questions about the Diggles case to the interim police chief, who was unreachable Monday afternoon.
“The more things change, the more they remain the same,” Jasper City Council Member Alton Scott said of the city’s racial troubles.
Scott obtained the video in the Diggles’ incident and turned it over to a local TV station after he heard that her written complaint against the officers was apparently being ignored.
“There’s nothing she said that could have justified what they did,” Scott said. “They are supposed to be trained professionals. They are supposed to be above that. It was inexcusable.”
After terminating the officers on Monday, the council requested that the pair be investigated for possible criminal charges. Bernsen said he hopes that probe is done by the FBI or state police.
“I don’t trust the Police Department as far as you can throw them,” he said.
Unreal…. They need to be strung up. This makes me ashamed to be a Texan.
Same here.
It’s pathetic how that fat faggot of a pig calls in help to beat up a woman.
Did anyone, anywhere, hear of a cop doing anything decent in the last few years, or are they all just a gang of punks now?
Christopher Dornan did something decent (allegedly).
He killed a couple of cops (again, allegedly).
Or was it only one, and just injured the other. Can’t recall for sure.
This is what also happens in Williamson County, TX as I have witnessed when I spent a night in jail just for taking my dog to the dog park. They put this one middle-aged blond woman up in solitary confinement because she didn’t like the way she was being treated by the cops. So of course after hours of being in solitary confinement and yelling and screaming, the corrections officers have a dumb down prisoner sit in front of the door to try and calm her down by brainwashing her and saying, “See. You got yourself all worked up and for what? Nothing. Just calm down and do what they tell you to do and you will be fine. There’s no need for the screaming. It will only keep you in here longer. Trust me. I know. I was like you before and I am better now. If you want to come out, you have to be a good girl and do what the officers tell you. You can’t win by acting like that. Just do what they say and everything will be ok.”
Yes, this is something that I was forced to hear in the waiting area of the holding center for like an hour and all I kept thinking was the word, “BRAINWASHING” to describe it. Break the prisoner and perform mind control. I just laughed and looked at the prisoners speaking to her and said, “What a F**king mindless sheeple.” She probably thought I meant the prisoner in the cell because she was that F**king stupid. Some of the other people sitting near me were thinking the same thing.
Anyways, in regards to the video/article, I would first like to say that the cop falling on his ass after trying to grab her by the shoe is ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS!! HAHAHA!!!
Also, notice how the woman just stands there and knows that everything that the police are doing is wrong, yet just stands there and helps them because she is afraid to speak out.
This is precious. Jasper city councilmember says, “I don’t trust the Police Department as far as I can throw them.” They will probably arrest the councilmember for “terroristic threats”. lol