In Coral Springs, Fla., a Black female was recorded being punched by a white male cop.
In a video taken by a bystander, a 14-year-old girl lies facedown while being held down by one cop, and getting punched in the side of her belly by another cop during an arrest.
The cellphone video has gone viral on social media:
OUTRAGEOUS!
This is a Coral Springs police officer repeatedly punching a 14-YEAR-OLD BLACK GIRL.
This is WHY WE KNEEL!!
RETWEET THIS! pic.twitter.com/k8IdfAabai
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) October 19, 2018
The Coral Springs police quickly responded with a post of their own stating, “As with all social media posts, it shows only the end of the story, not the incident in its entirety which led up to the arrest. Officers were called to the mall by security about unruly teens, who had been harassing patrons and causing a disturbance.”
According to authorities, one of the teens was seen shoving a 5-year-old to the ground while the girl in the video was seen striking another teen patron. Mall security asked the Coral Springs cops to issue a trespassing warning and bar the teenagers from the mall.
The adolescents were not done as they went back to the mall to instigate some more commotion. After one of the teens was taken into custody, the female teen seen in the video began cursing, attempting to incite the other teens.
Cops attempted to take her into custody, at which time they said she began to “fight and resist arrest.”
To get her to comply, police said the teen “was struck in the side to release her clenched fists.” After she was handcuffed, and being placed in the patrol car, she “violently kicked one of the officers.”
The girl’s lawyer, Meeghan Moldof, told NBC Miami, “Immediately watching the video, I could not believe what I was seeing. To me, it’s very clear it’s excessive force. There’s no reason for him to hit her.”
Moldof said the girl’s mother, Jessica Dennis, is considering filing a lawsuit against the police department. Dennis says the video of her daughter being hit was “difficult to watch.”
The incident was also put on Instagram by a person identifying herself as the girl’s cousin, Victoria Cedeno who said her cousin was leaving the mall after a boy spit in her face when she was then confronted by cops and “thrown to the grown and punched because she couldn’t get her hands free from under her when they [were] trying to handcuff her.”
Cedeno said the officer punched her cousin because she “back talked him.”
