"You A Dumb Bitch," The Cop Tells Her
She a smart bitch, it turns out. The daughter of a cop, who knows her rights. And the video on her phone, apparently erased by somebody in the police department, was -- oopsy! -- still on the cloud.
Via Scott Greenfield, Ian Duncan reports in the Balt Sun:
In the early hours of a Sunday morning in March, Kianga Mwamba said, she was on the way home from a family gathering and about to stop to pick up some food for her children at the all-night restaurant Valentino's.But as she got near, she stopped to record a group of police arresting a man across the street.
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.
"I'm in shock for real, like are they really doing this to me," Mwamba said as she recalled the arrest in an interview this fall.
Kianga Mwamba, 36, was accused of assaulting police officers after she videotaped an arrest. The charges were later dropped and she is suing the police department, alleging that officers tried to delete the tape from her phone.
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.
...Mwamba's video does not capture the entire scene, and after she stopped her car and began filming an officer told her keep moving once a stoplight turned green.
"All right, I'll park, I'll park," Mwamba tells the officers.
Multiple officers can be heard telling Mwamba to get out of the street but as she tries to pull over, Mwamba says she cannot get out of the road because there are officers blocking the way.
"How can I pull my car over right here when the police is right here?" Mwamba says, according to the video.
Then, a minute and 23 seconds after Mwamba began filming, things appear to start spiraling out of control. The video does not show what happened but shouting and the sound of banging can be heard outside the car and Mwamba says, "Why would you do that?"
Officer Stephanie Uruchima wrote in a report that Mwamba had accelerated and hit Officer Kari Larson in the legs, knocking her back. Mwamba denies that she tried to hit Larson.
Uruchima then described an orderly process of trying to remove Mwamba from the car, but on the video it appears as though officers rush forward and they can be heard using a Taser, which has a distinctive clicking sound.
Read the details in the complaint (from the suit filed).
Law prof Turley blogs:
Despite consistent rulings upholding the right of citizens to film police in public, these abuses continue....The March 30th encounter is now the subject of a lawsuit against the Baltimore City Police Department, a department that has been the subject of repeated and ongoing claims of police abuse.
In the complaint ... Mwamba says that she was told to move her car but could not because there were police officers around it and then without warning she was dragged from the car and tased. She said that when she asked for her inhaler, officers laughed at her.
Ugly. To protect (themselves) and serve (themselves).
I wonder what her chances of winning are. I ask, because a friend of mine was exiting a grocery store when he was ordered to stop by cops. Not realizing the cops were speaking to him, he continued, and then was tackled, which caused him to break his femur.
Turns out, it was a case of mistaken identity. The cops mismatched the description of a suspected shoplifter to my friend.
He wanted to sue; however, no lawyer would take the case. Apparently not wishing to rankle the cops in the Tampa Bay area.
Patrick at December 12, 2014 7:30 AM
What? not even John Morgan will take that case?
I R A Darth Aggie at December 12, 2014 9:53 AM
If she can prove the attempt to delete the recording, it's no longer only a questionable arrest - it is also the serious crime of tampering with evidence, which is also evidence of awareness of guilt.
markm at December 13, 2014 9:51 AM
"Not realizing the cops were speaking to him, he continued, and then was tackled, which caused him to break his femur."
This is not a defense of the police at all - but if you are unaware of the possibility of violence to your person, you are an easy mark for any thug - not just those in a uniform. I hope your pal pays more attention in the future.
Radwaste at December 14, 2014 6:20 AM
Apparently officers "Stephanie" and "Kari" didn't get the feminist memo which instructs that females on the police force will use their innate gentleness and superior empathy and communication skills to reduce all that nasty male brutality associated with police work.
Jay R at December 15, 2014 1:31 PM
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