A Black woman is speaking out after she was wrongfully detained by Houston police in front of her two children. But while Kathleen Booker has shared footage of the shocking incident online, police officials are telling a very different story.
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It all started when Booker was driving her white Nissan Armada from her Houston home on Friday (April 3). Soon after leaving her house with her stepdaughter and toddler, Booker told Fox 26 News she was stopped by several Fulshear Police Department (FPD) units.
At some point during the stop, Booker’s stepdaughter pulls out her cellphone and begins recording. You can hear in the clip one officer yell for Booker to put her “hands in the air” as she repeatedly asked why she was being stopped.
“What did I do?” the mother asked with her driver side door open. At this point, Booker was still seated in her vehicle as her daughter filmed in confusion from the passenger side. “What the actual heck?” the young girl responded. As the daughter pans the camera up, you can briefly see several officers pull out their guns, with at least one pointing their weapon in the direction of the vehicle.
“Is this a joke,” Booker then asked in disbelief.
According to FPD, Booker was stopped as police continued their search and investigation into an early robbery at a local gas station. They were told two Black males– armed and masked– broke through a window at the gas station and stole money. They said Booker’s Nissan fit the description of the car suspects allegedly used for to escape.
“But the details didn’t even line up,” Booker wrote on Instagram. “Different vehicle type. Different race. Different gender. And still… I was detained.”
In the rest of the footage, Booker followed officers’ instructions to put her hands up. A female officer eventually approached Booker and put her in handcuffs. Booker’s daughter was also asked to exit the vehicle as the 2-year-old remained inside the car.
“What happened to me while I had my stepdaughter and toddler in the car shook me. And even though I wasn’t physically harmed, the mental impact is real,” Booker told Fox 26 News. Now, she’s obtained legal representation after police admitted she was not the target of the investigation.
“My client was simply a law-abiding citizen who was minding her own business with her own children,” Booker’s attorney, Audia Jones told Fox 26. “The police violated her rights, and we’re here to make sure they’re held accountable.”
Police, on the other hand, defended their actions that day. In a written statement, they said Booker was “reluctant to comply with officers’ commands,” which prompted the scene to escalate.
“Situations such as this require officers to make rapid decisions based on limited and evolving information. In this case, the decision to stop the vehicle was based on a reasonable match to the suspect vehicle description, combined with the vehicle’s proximity in time and location to the reported crime,” the department’s statement continued. “While we understand that incidents like this can be concerning, our officers acted in good faith and in accordance with their training and department policy.”
Now, Booker said she is traumatized and her daughter fears Fulshear police. “I have a clean record. And if this is what I experienced… I can only imagine what others go through every single day,” she said on Instagram. “I’m tired of feeling alone in moments like this. So I’m sharing.”
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