A horrifying video that appears to show a black teenage girl being punched by a cop has gone viral. Understandably, the video has caused a lot of outrage, though police claim the cell phone recording only shows a sliver of the entire interaction.
The person who recorded the cell phone footage, and subsequently posted it to Instagram, says that the girl being arrested is her 14-year-old cousin.
"Why you hitting her?" Someone off-camera yells. "She can't do it. She can't do that, her hand's underneath her!"
Two officers from the Coral Springs Police Department seemingly have the teenager pinned to the ground. One of the officers, who seems to have a knee in the teen’s back, punches her in the ribs.
The Coral Springs PD released a statement, titled “RUMOR CONTROL,” about the incident:
“The Coral Springs Police Department believes in transparency. It is important for people to have all of the facts before rushing to judgment of an officer's actions when faced with calls for service involving violent suspects — regardless of their age or gender.”
Their story goes like this: Coral Square Mall security originally called officers about "unruly teens who had been harassing patrons and causing a disturbance." Police arrived and gave the teens a trespassing warning, which also barred them from the mall.
According to police, before they actually left the mall, the teenagers returned. They took one teenager, a boy, into custody without incident. Police say that when this happened, the teenage girl who appears in the video “began cursing, attempting to incite the other teens."
When officers attempted to arrest her, they claim, she resisted.
Police explained: “Due to her stature and aggressive behavior, officers took her to the ground attempting to get her to release her fists. As seen in the video she resisted arrest, and in order to have her to comply she was struck in the side to release her clenched fists — she was then handcuffed."
The teenager’s mother, Jessica Dennis, isn’t warming up to the police narrative. "She clearly wasn't aggressive. Everyone could see she was laying there," Dennis said in her statement to WSVN 7News. “I just want justice to be served.”
The girl was taken to a local juvenile assessment center, according to police.
It’s hard to watch the video above without thinking about the numerous times young people of color, particularly black Americans, are targeted by police. Dajerria Becton, for example, was 15 years old in the summer of 2015 when she was tackled and aggressively handled by then-cop Eric Casebolt, who was responding to reports of a pool party.
Becton recently won a settlement, but that’s sadly a rare victory. Black Americans face higher rates of violence from police, not to mention the increasing rate at which white people call the police on them simply for existing.
The statement from police is true: The video only captures part of the incident. But it also brings up more questions: What role might racial bias have played? Would the same behavior from a white teenage girl have merited the same response? Knowing how black Americans too often face abuse at the hands of police, the force shown against the teenager in the video is certainly hard to justify.