Police body camera shows officer assaulting pregnant woman

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Body camera footage shows Barstow, CA police officer harass, humiliate and assault a Black pregnant woman and mother Charlena Michelle Cooks following an altercation with a driver at her daughter’s school.

Officer Assaults Pregnant Woman

The ACLU alleges the arrest was wrongful and the wrestling to the ground of an eight months pregnant black woman after she got into an argument with a white woman outside a school in Barstow, California.

“I’d say it’s pretty horrifying because the parent is dropping off her second-grade daughter (and) got into altercation with another parent,” Jessica Price, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said of the video, posted online by the group. The women were upset with each over a driving dispute.

“A lot of people are going to look at this and going to say there is some level of racial profiling and bias going on here,” Price said.

CNN reports, the city of Barstow, however, said police acted properly in the January arrest of Charlena Michelle Cooks of Barstow, though a charge of resisting arrest against her was dropped.

“It is apparent that Ms. Cook actively resisted arrest,” the city statement said.

An investigation into the incident started on Tuesday after the ACLU posted the video online and issued a news release about the incident.
In an interview with CNN, Cooks, 29, said the officers treated her “like an animal, like a monster, like I didn’t exist, like I was not human.”

The video shows separate statements by the two women to police, and each accused the other of being threatening in a dispute about how each was driving in a parking lot. The women provide dramatically different accounts to the police officer.

“I felt like he took her word over mine automatically,” she said. “He automatically assumed I was guilty.

“I’m really scared,” Cooks added, crying. “I’m trying to move out of Barstow now, like tomorrow.

“I was in unbelievable pain,” said Cooks, who moved to Barstow in July. “I felt they killed my baby already.

I work so hard to provide for my family. This is not an issue I wanted. I was just dropping my child off at school for the day,” said Cooks, a retail clerk.

Cook was dropping her daughter off at the time.

Cooks’ pregnancy resulted in the birth on March 30 of a full-term girl, Olive, two months after the police incident. The baby is healthy, the mom said.

Cooks’ attorney, Caree Harper, described the video as “another outrageous beating of yet another undeserving citizen in this country.”

“It’s clear that the treatment of the blond complaining female was different than the treatment of my client,” Harper said.

“Constitutionally speaking, she’s done nothing wrong,” Harper said.

Cook was initially charged with resisting arrest but the charge was later dropped.

The ACLU posted the video in connection with a news release about the settlement with Barstow and its Police Department in the case involving the arrest of two brothers.

“We feel it’s a very important teaching tool on what not to do on the police officer’s part,” Price, a representative of the ACLU said.