As places like Illinois try to make it illegal to tape record police officers doing their "work", video of police "working" has emerged. Kianga Mwamba says she was heading home from family gathering when she stopped her car to film Baltimore police allegedly beating up a man they had in custody.
Mwamba, 36, flicked on the video recorder on her cell phone, telling officers she was allowed to record. But the situation quickly devolved into Mwamba's being hauled from her Toyota, tasered and charged with assaulting two police officers.
The police said Mwamba tried to run over officers with her car. Mwamba showed them the video.
And when Mwamba was bailed out of jail that Monday morning, she said the video she made appeared to have been deleted from her phone. It was only when she checked another app that backed up her images and videos to the cloud that she found she still had a copy, she said.
Prosecutors dropped all the charges against Mwamba in September, concluding that there was insufficient evidence to move forward, and last week she filed a $7 million lawsuit against a number of officers she says were involved in her arrest and what she says was an attempt by police to destroy the footage.
The police department, having now "officially" seen the video
had this to say:
"The video does not capture enough information to draw definitive conclusions about what transpired before, during, and after the arrest," the department said. "What is clear is that the language used is unacceptable and will not be tolerated."
Also, Kianga Mwamba's dad? He's a veteran of the Maryland Capitol police.