Footage of a hostile encounter between a Fort Worth, Texas, police officer and a black woman who reported that a white man had assaulted her 7-year-old child

Porsha Craver via Facebook

Updated Thursday, Dec. 22, 2016, 4:12 p.m. EST: The Fort Worth Police Department has released a statement regarding the video showing a Fort Worth police officer assaulting and arresting Jacqueline Craig and her two daughters:



We acknowledge that the initial appearance of the video may raise serious questions. We ask that our investigators are given the time and opportunity to thoroughly examine this incident and to submit their findings. This process may take time, but the integrity of the investigation rests upon the ability of the investigators to document facts and to accurately evaluate the size and scope of what transpired. We ask our community for patience and calm during this investigation process.

Read the full statement below:




Update:

According to attorney Merritt, Jacqueline Craig, 46, has finally been released from the Mansfield Law Enforcement Center and is heading home along with her daughter Brea Hymond, 19.


Update:

Update:

In an interview with The Root, attorney Lee Merritt, legal counsel for Jacqueline Craig and Brea Hymond, said that mother and daughter had not been released. They are being held at Mansfield Law Enforcement Center on charges of resisting arrest, interference with a “peace” officer and failure to provide identification.


Craig’s 15-year-old daughter (seen in the video in pink) was also arrested and taken into police custody. Because it is illegal to hold a minor on nonfelony offenses, she was released into the custody of an older sister.

As of this morning, no report had been generated by the Fort Worth Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division pertaining to the officer’s assault of Craig’s 7-year-old son.


“After bond is posted, completing this report will be our first step,” Merritt said.


Update:

Detective M. Kelly with the Fort Worth Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division told The Root that Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald had been made aware of the Wednesday arrests of Jacqueline Craig and her daughter Brea Hymond, and that the department would most likely issue a statement later this afternoon.


Kelly said that he was not authorized to release the name of the officer captured on video assaulting Craig and Hymond.

Update:

Lee Merritt, attorney for Jacqueline Craig and Brea Hymond, is at the Fort Worth jail with his clients.


Earlier:

A video of a Fort Worth, Texas, police officer antagonizing, assaulting and, ultimately, arresting a black mother who reported an assault on her son is circulating on social media.


After the police officer has what appears to be a quiet exchange with the attacker, he strolls over to the mother, identified by family members on social media as Jacqueline Craig, and asks condescendingly, "What's going on with you?"

"My daughter and son came home, saying that this man grabbed him and choked him," Craig says as her daughter, identified by family on social media as Brea Hymond, records. "I came around here and asked him. I said, 'Why did you put your hands on my son?' He said, 'Oh, he threw some paper and I told him to pick it up.' He said he defied him and that's why he did it … you don't have the right to choke somebody's son. My son is 7 years old, you don't have the right to grab him and choke him."


In response to Craig's distress, the police officer asks in an accusing tone, "Why don't you teach your son not to litter?"

"He can't prove to me that my son did or didn't, but it doesn't matter," Craig says. "That doesn't give him the right to put his hands on him."


To which the officer responds, "Why not?"

Why. Not.

Editor’s note: See NSFW video below. Trigger warning: Misogynoir; police brutality; white supremacist violence. The family has asked that this video be shared in hopes that the assaulting officer loses his job.


In the video, a visibly upset Craig tells the officer that he doesn't know what she teaches her children, and makes it clear that he is wrong for interrogating her instead of the man who assaulted her 7-year-old son.


The officer, pretending that he had not just insinuated that the white man had a right to assault her child, asks, "Why are you yelling?"

She explains that she is "pissed off" that he would even suggest that her son deserved to be assaulted and that he questioned her parenting skills, to which the officer responds, "If you keep yelling at me, you're going to piss me off and I'm going [to] take you to jail."


When another one of Craig's daughters attempts to get between her and the officer, he pushes her out of the way, grabs Craig, pushes her to the ground, presses a Taser into her back, then points the Taser at her children.

The white man who assaulted the child stands by quietly as the police officer treats a group of black women, mother and daughters like violent criminals.


The police officer eventually arrests Hymond and takes her phone.



Porsha Craver via Facebook


At the beginning of the video, you can hear Hymond say, "Don't yell, Mama." Even before the violence started, she knew that any anger on her mother's part would trigger state violence against her. And after the cop patronized and antagonized Craig—dismissing the violence against her son—he showed her that, for him, her son's life didn't matter, and neither did her life or the lives of her daughters. Just like the white man who assaulted a black child, this cop felt the need to show domination over black bodies.

This is one reason that so many black people in this country hate the police. Nothing about this was necessary. It was a blatant show of power by a coward with a gun who clearly gets off terrorizing black women and children.


There is no peace with that. Ever.

I called the Fort Worth Police Department for a statement, and the officer on duty said that she didn't know about the incident and that the department didn't have a statement.


Calls to its media department have not been returned.

Next Generation Action Network is also at the Fort Worth jail. The social-justice organization has planned a police brutality protest. See details below.

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