WATCH: Cops Assault Pregnant Woman During False Arrest—Causing Miscarriage—Lawsuit

San Francisco, CA – Body Cam footage has been released that shows Bay Area Transit Police pinning a woman down on the ground as they arrest her, as she warns them that she is pregnant. One day after the arrest, the woman claims she miscarried, and she is now suing police for the loss of her baby.

Andrea Appleton and Michael Smith were arrested by BART Police on July 29, 2016, after another individual on the train called police and claimed that Smith was armed with a gun and attempted to rob him.

According to a report from SFGate, the original complaint turned out to be a lie. However, after Smith’s attempts to get away from police included him spitting at one of them, he was charged with resisting arrest, and battery on an officer, among other charges. At trial, Smith’s jury was hopelessly deadlocked, which exonerated him of the remaining charges. Prosecutors refused to retry Smith. But the damage was already done—Appleton miscarried as a result of the violent way in which officers arrested her.

Advertisment

Body camera footage of the takedown and violent arrest of the pregnant woman was made available to the public and shows Appleton quickly announce to the officers she was pregnant. Ignoring her pleas, they proceeded to keep her in the face down, belly down position in the concrete.

When Smith tried to object to the position in which police were keeping his girlfriend, they quickly pounced on him to restrain him. Now the couple is suing. According to SFGate:

“In a lawsuit filed Sept. 1 at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Michael Smith and Andrea Appleton accused the arresting officers — Bryan Trabanino, Wilson Velasquez-Ochoa, Jimmy Chung and Antwinette Turner — of using excessive force when they approached the couple with their guns drawn on July 29, 2016, and forced them onto their stomachs at Embarcadero Station.”

Appleton is suing for an undisclosed amount of money for damages as a result of pain, suffering, fear, anxiety, humiliation and emotional distress. While riding on the train, a man, “told them to move away because they smelled, sparking an argument. The man, who was white, then called police and falsely reported that Smith, who is black, had threatened to rob him, telling dispatchers that Smith may have had a gun, though he did not,” according to SFGate.

READ MORE:  7 Men Arrested in New York for Threatening to Kill Police

The entire incident serves to illustrate modern policing methods do not take into consideration that the one-size-fits-all method of arresting suspects may, in fact, be dangerous to citizens’ health.

In June, The Free Thought Project reported on the story of a Syracuse man who was already badly disabled before he made contact with police on a city bus. Police arrived and then tased the man, and threw him off the bus, breaking his hip in the process.

In August, TFTP reported on the account of a 72-year-old New York man who was so mistreated by police he nearly had his wrists severed from the tight-fitting handcuffs placed on him. When he arrived at the police station for booking on “resisting arrest” charges, he was a bloody mess, even though he posed no threat to the officers and offered no resistance to police whatsoever. He is also suing.

The story of Andrea Appleton’s miscarriage serves as a reminder that pregnant, elderly, young, disabled and handicapped citizens should not be manhandled or violently arrested, especially when they pose no threat to the public. After all, many police officers are more than capable of using psychological skills to get citizens to comply. Violence should always be a last resort.

Watch the full video of the Body Cam footage from the arrest below:

Despite Blood Draw Being a Clear Sign of a Cover Up, Dept. Did Nothing Until Nurse Video Went Viral

When a video of a police officer violently arresting a nurse who refused to take a blood sample from an unconscious patient went viral, the main questions were: When did this incident happen, were the officers fired as a result, and why were they so adamant about getting the blood sample that they were willing to arrest a nurse who was following the law?

The incident occurred on July 26, over one month before the Body Cam footage was released. While the officer featured in the video who initiated the manhandling, Detective Jeff Payne, was taken off of the Blood Draw Unit and placed on “administrative duty,” he was still paid his full taxpayer-funded salary, and was not subject to a criminal investigation—up until the video went viral.

However, after the Body Cam footage of the arrest spread across the internet, Payne was placed on administrative leave, and Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill announced that a criminal investigation will be conducted in the name of “transparency and institutional accountability.”

“On the face of the evidence, there is concern that is raised about this officer’s conduct,” Gill told the Salt Lake Tribune. “But the whole point of an investigation is to gather the information about this situation.”

Advertisment

In response to the video, Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski and Police Chief Mike Brown also held a press conference and issued statements on Friday claiming they were alarmed by the video. They insisted that changes to police blood draw policies and officer training have been made—although they did not specify what those changes were.

READ MORE:  Netflix Series Exposes Govt-Connected Child Sex Ring in Baltimore, Police Forced to Respond

However, one of the most alarming things about the rhetoric from Biskupski and Brown was their claim that seeing the video of Payne’s behavior in the media was the first time they had fully seen the Body Cam footage.

This is concerning, not only because it shows that a police chief is not paying attention to the actions of his officers, but also because Jeff Payne was not the only officer on the scene when he arrested Nurse Alex Wubbels. There were multiple officers shown in the video who stood and watched—with some even stepping in to help—as Payne grabbed Wubbels and violently arrested her.

Even if those officers present during the arrest did not feel comfortable standing up and saying something at the time, why didn’t they mention anything about it to their internal supervisors? And if they did, why was the police chief not alerted to the fact that he needed to watch the Body Cam footage in full?

As for the question of why police were so adamant about obtaining the blood of an unconscious man that Payne was willing to arrest a nurse who was following the law, and his fellow officers were willing to stand around and watch as it happened, the answer may stem from the reason why the man in question was unconscious in the first place.

William Gray, a reserve police officer from Rigby, Idaho, was the comatose patient whose blood was demanded by the Salt Lake City officers. Gray was working as a truck driver when a car crossed into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with his truck—severely injuring Gray and killing the driver of the car.

READ MORE:  Cops Beat an Innocent Man on His Way to Work For No Reason, All 3 Dashcams "Broke"

The car that hit Gray was driven by a man who was the suspect in a Utah State Highway Patrol chase, which may explain his erratic driving. A statement released by the Rigby Police Department thanked Nurse Wubbels for “protecting Officer Gray’s rights as a patient and a victim,” and noted that Gray was the victim in the crash and “at no time was he under any suspicion of wrongdoing.”

“The Rigby Police Department would like to thank the nurse involved and hospital staff for standing firm, and protecting Officer Gray’s rights as a patient and victim. Protecting the rights of others is truly a heroic act. … It is important to remember that Officer Gray is the victim in this horrible event, and that at no time was he under any suspicion of wrongdoing. As he continues to heal, we would ask that his family be given privacy, respect, and prayers for continued recovery and peace.”

While many have speculated that the reason why Salt Lake City Police were so adamant about obtaining a sample of Gray’s blood was that they were looking for a substance that would impair his driving to the point where they could not be held liable for the chase in a future lawsuit, the truth may never be made public.

However, the fact that a police officer violently arrested a nurse for following the law and respecting the rights of an innocent patient, while multiple officers watched and even aided the arrest, and yet the police chief claims that he never even watched the Body Cam footage in its entirety, is a fact that cannot be covered up, and should be on the forefront of everyone’s mind when looking at this situation.

READ MORE:  17 Real Issues 2016 Presidential Candidates Wont" Touch Because They"re Paid Not To

“YouTube Alert!”: Cops Turn Off Dash Cam While Beating Surrendered Man, Nearly Kill Him

A trial on the use of excessive force during a violent arrest in the city of Calgary has included a number of revelations as one officer admits he intentionally turned off his Dash Cam, and another officer admits he yelled “YouTube alert!” to encourage his fellow officers to stop recording a brutal beating that was sure to go viral.

Clayton Prince, 35, suffered multiple broken ribs and a collapsed lung on July 30, 2016, after a traffic stop led to a violent arrest. Prince testified that he was on his way home from a summer music festival when he was pulled over, and because he was paranoid that he still had marijuana and cocaine in his system from the event, he fled the scene.

When officers caught up to Prince, he was lying face-down on the grass, in the position to surrender for an arrest—the only thing the officers had to do was to put him in handcuffs. However, that is when the violence began.

Constable Chris Harris testified that the officers on the scene made “no meaningful attempts” to actually put Prince in handcuffs, and they resorted to mercilessly beating him with their fists and knees instead, as he lay helpless on the ground with no way to defend himself.

Advertisment

“It was clear that Mr. Prince’s reaction was one of pain. It appeared he wasn’t resisting the officers; he was attempting to move away from the pain,” Harris said, in response to a video played for the court, which showed Prince screaming in pain as the beating took place.

READ MORE:  On-Duty Cop Rapes, Beats, Urinates on Woman, Pleads Guilty — NO JAIL

Harris said the violence became so “out of control” that he began yelling “YouTube alert” at his fellow officers, hoping it would encourage them to stop the beating, for fear that members of the public were recording the incident.

As a result of the violent assault, Prince spent five days in the hospital recovering, and Calgary Police Officers James Othen, Kevin Humfrey and Michael Sandalack, are now on trial for charges of assault causing bodily harm.

While there is Dash Cam footage that shows Prince lying face down on the ground as Othen jumps on his back, and Humfrey punches him, Constable D’Arcy Oakes admitted that he turned off the camera moments after he arrived at the scene, leaving out crucial footage.

“I hit the button,” Oakes told Crown Prosecutor Jim Stewart when asked why he ended the video when he did.

“Why did you do that?” Stewart asked.

“I did not do it on purpose,” Oakes replied, claiming it was “a combination of adrenalin, trying to turn the vehicle off and turning the (flashing) lights off.”

Oakes testified that he watched Othen jump and kick his knee into Prince’s ribs, and then as Othen and Humfrey held Prince down, Sandalack began striking Prince in the face with his knee. Oakes said that both Othen and Humfrey were yelling at Prince to stop resisting.

Othen is also charged with assault with a weapon for digging a key into Prince’s neck behind his ear—a claim that Constable Ryan MacPherson testified to witnessing after Prince was finally handcuffed and placed in a police truck, and Othen opened up the backdoor and confronted him.

READ MORE:  Family of Toddler Whose Baby Was Severely Injured by Police Demand Justice

Both Humfrey and Othen have also been charged with public mischief for filing false reports, after footage from a police Dash Cam contradicted their accounts of the incident, and prompted an investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team.

“In an effort to change the narrative from the truth, both James Othen and Kevin Humfrey made false statements to [a constable], who they knew was in charge of writing up the report,” Stewart said during the trial.

Othen and Humphrey are currently suspended without pay, and Sandalack is on “administrative duties.” The trial is set to resume on Nov. 6.