“What the f-ck did I do wrong!?” Christina Pierre is heard asking in a blood-curdling scream throughout the 30 videos released by a North Carolina police department from a now viral arrest. The clip of an officer beating her leg led to suspicions of the abuse of force.
Tuesday, The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department published a slew of videos, including body cameras from the responding officers and surveillance footage from Pierre’s interrogation.
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In the videos, Pierre and her fiancé Anthony Lee were seen sitting at a bus stop in front of a Bojangles on S. Tryon Street. When approached by two officers, one officer asks if they’re smoking weed. They explain they got what the department called a THC-A cigarette from a nearby smoke shop. However, the officers continued asking them if it was weed, insisting they smell it. After the couple replies in unison, “We got it from the smoke shop,” each officer reaches to grab them off the bench.
One officer grabbed Pierre by her arm and yanked her off the seat. CMPD Lt. Kevin Pietrus said the officer was trying to “remove her from the situation” and said she inserted herself back in the situation seconds later.
In the video, Pierre put her hands up, walking back over to the bench to get her bag. “I’m just trying to get my stuff!” she said while the officer grabbed her again and pulled her away. In another bystander video included in the footage, a struggle is seen between Pierre and the officer. She is seen punching the officer’s shoulder while trying to release his grip on her arm. The cop then punched her in the face and she fell to the ground.
When backup arrives, their body cameras capture the footage of what happened at the point the viral video was recorded. Pierre is on the ground, keeping her arms underneath her while the officers push their weight on her head and back. She later told officers at the station she was trying to protect her glasses. The video then shows the officer punching her repeatedly in the leg, which Lt. Pietrus said was supposed to trigger a “common peroneal nerve” so she’d comply.
After the cops get Pierre in handcuffs, the video shows them transferring her into the police car while she’s hysterically crying, asking what she did wrong. “You assaulted a police officer!” one cop yells to which she responded, “He assaulted me!”
In the CMPD’s release, they attached a lab report where they tested the substances found in the couple’s belongings which tested positive for marijuana. Pierre maintained in her interrogation that it was a legal purchase from a local smoke shop. The police also recovered a firearm belonging to Mr. Lee.
Pierre’s charges of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest and marijuana possession have since been dropped as well as Lee’s charges of resisting arrest, carrying a concealed weapon and marijuana possession, according to Pietrus.
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