A Texas police officer was placed on restrictive duty Thursday when Facebook Live video surfaced of him tossing a mother and daughter to the ground and arresting them after they called police to report the woman’s 7-year-old son had allegedly been assaulted by a white man.
The video caused outrage online and went viral. At the time of this writing, the video has been viewed 1.3 million times and shared over 28,000 times.
It begins with the Fort Worth police officer, who hasn’t been identified, talking to a white man accused by the boy's mother of grabbing and choking her son after an argument over a piece of paper the boy supposedly threw on the ground.
The woman, identified as Jacqueline Craig, 46, said in the video the man told her son to pick it up. When he refused, she said, the man put his hands on her son.
The discussion between the officer and Craig got heated and the officer asked, “Why don’t you teach your son not to litter?” Craig’s 15-year-old daughter then tried to get between her and the officer as the yelling ensued.
Later in the video, the officer is seen taking Craig to the ground and handcuffing her. It appears as though and he put a stun gun to her back, then pointed the gun at onlookers.
As the situation unfolds, Porsha Cravers, a relative of Craig’s who shot the video, can be heard repeatedly telling the officer, “you on Live,” indicating that she was capturing the footage using Facebook Live.
The officer is shown taking both Craig and her daughter into custody. Later, he tells Cravers, “OK, you’re going to jail,” and takes Cravers into custody.
After the video of incident, Cravers cuts to footage of her telling viewers, “So I just wanted you all to see how Fort Worth Police just treated my family after calling them to help them after a racist man putting his hand on a 7 year old...who couldn’t defend himself...And when we called Fort Worth Police, this is what we got.”
Watch the complete video:
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that Craig and her daughter were arrested. Their attorney, Lee Merritt, told The Root that as of Thursday afternoon Craig had not been released but her daughter was no longer in custody.
Fort Worth police said in a statement Thursday that after they were informed of the video the officer was immediately placed on restrictive duty pending an investigation. They said that internal affairs has begun an investigation and two of three women captured on video being taken into custody have been interviewed.
“We acknowledge that the initial appearance of the video may raise serious questions. We ask that our investigators are given the time and opportunity to thoroughly examine this incident and to submit their findings,” Fort Worth Police said in a statement.
“This process may take time, but the integrity of the investigation rests upon the ability of the investigators to document facts and to accurately evaluate the size and scope of what transpired. We ask our community for patience and calm during this investigation process.”