Police brutality allegation being investigated by Harrison County sheriff

The Harrison County Sheriff’s Department is investigating an incident in which a deputy is accused of slamming an inmate’s head into the back of a van.

Peachrich Pouerie McLemore told WXXV 25 in Gulfport that she was trying to back up and saw a Harrison County transport bus and van.

“We had to stop,” she said. “Two officers came around the van with an inmate in shackles, handcuffs and shackles on his feet.”

After some conversation between that inmate and an officer, she said she saw that officer slam the head of the inmate into the back of the van. “I told my son to start recording” on his cellphone, she said.

The video shows an inmate attempting to slide into the van, and the officer slamming him into the back of that van. The inmate and the officer were the same ones in the head-slamming incident, she said.

When she shared the video with the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department, she said she was told that the inmate was resisting and that they would look into it.

She said the deputy asked her if she knew who the inmate was, and she said no. Then she said the deputy asked why she shot the video, and she replied, “Because the officer slammed his head into the van.”

When she saw it, she became upset because “it could have been my child,” she said. “Just because you’re an authority, you can’t treat people like that. That is somebody’s child. That is somebody’s brother. Above anything, that’s a human being.”

Society won’t accept people mistreating dogs, and they should feel the same about those behind bars, she said. “That was very wrong. That child could have been very hurt.”

TNathan Lokius Fairley, who manages the Mississippi Rising Coalition, said these kinds of videos “are becoming all too common, and we are still not addressing the issue of police brutality in any meaningful sense."

Sheriff Troy Peterson told the Sun-Herald that his office is now investigating. "Everything is transparent,” he said. “We're going to be swift with this. If (deputies) are found guilty on their actions, then they're going to be held accountable for it.”