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Forney, Texas police brutality video

Source: Facebook / Facebook.com/antanique.ray

While Congress stalls crucial police reform legislation, cops around the country have continued to inflict brutality on innocent people with impunity.

Case and point: A young police officer in suburban Dallas is under investigation after a Black woman accused him of brutalizing her teenage daughter as she was “simply walking home.”

The incident happened Tuesday as Nekia Trigg, 18, was walking in the Forney neighborhood of Deerfield Heights, her mother, according to a Facebook post written by a person who identified herself as Trigg’s sister. The Facebook post was accompanied by video footage of the police encounter. Trigg’s sister said someone called the police to say she was obstructing traffic in the neighborhood.

That’s when everything went left, according to Trigg’s sister.

“The first officer Martin showed up & grabbed her arm & twisted it 2 different ways without addressing her,” Trigg’s sister wrote. “Put her on the ground choked her & sat on top of her while she can’t breath [sic] to where she was foaming at the mouth.”

When Trigg’s mother, Antanique Ray, moved in to intervene and to soothe Nekia, “the officer punched her & dunked her and sat on top of her also the same police officer Martin put his arm in her throat.”

After the officer loosens up his grip, handcuffs Nekia and gets her to stand up, Ray, 41, is shown walking alongside them. But the video also showed the officer who restrained Triggs and other cops on the scene respond to Ray with force, pushing her down forcefully on the street’s pavement before appearing to employ the same violent restraint used on Triggs.

Watch the video below.

The Dallas Morning News reported that Ray was ultimately arrested for assaulting a public servant and interfering with public duties. Trigg was hospitalized for a mental health evaluation.

Ray’s cousin told the Dallas Morning News that the cops should have known that Triggs wasn’t a real threat because there is not heavy traffic in that neighborhood.

“I’m not sure what they would consider traffic when she was clearly in a residential area,” Teronica Williams said. “There’s not much traffic in a residential area when kids are literally always outside in the street riding bikes, playing basketball, etc.”

The police officer only identified by his last name of Martin has reportedly only been on the force for three years. A spokesman with the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office said Martin was “not working,” though it was not immediately clear if that meant he had been suspended or resigned or something else.

The encounter in Forney was the latest evidence that police need to be retrained (or trained) in how to de-escalate apparent mental health crises instead of responding with force.

Just this past Sunday, an officer in suburban Atlanta sicced a police dog on a handcuffed Black man who his lawyers say “was having a mental health crisis and awaiting an ambulance” at his home.

Luckily, the instance in Georgia and Forney didn’t result in any deaths, unlike last September in Texas when Damian Daniels, a military veteran, was shot twice in the chest in front of his newly purchased home after cops were dispatched there to perform a wellness check.

This is America.

SEE ALSO:

Video Shows Cops Use Police Dog On Handcuffed, Unarmed Black Man Having Mental Health Crisis

Feds Fund Mental Health Crisis Intervention Teams To Stand In For Police

#SayHerName: Black Women And Girls Killed By Police
Ma'Khia Bryant
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