The racially-charged tensions in the town of Jasper, Texas became a little more strained after two white police officers were fired for mistreating a black woman while in custody.The incident occurred May 5 at the Jasper police headquarters, and was caught on surveillance video. The video shows Keyarika "Shea" Diggles, 25, who was brought in because of a fine she owed the police department, having a verbal altercation with a police officer. Then, another police officer appears and the two shove Diggles’ head into the counter and pull her by her hair to the floor. Diggles is then dragged by the ankles into a holding cell.
“The amount of force used was abominable,” said Cade Bernsen, Diggles’ attorney, to Yahoo News.
Allegedly, the altercation began when Diggles was attempting to call her mother for the $100 she owed when Officer Ricky Grissom cut off the call and cornered her. The video does not include audio, so it is unclear what was said.
Once Diggles was cornered, the second officer, Ryan Cunningham, comes at her from behind and attempts to cuff her as they both slam her head into the countertop.
“She got her hair pulled out, broke a tooth, braces got knocked off … it was brutal,” Bernsen said.
Diggles was then charged with resisting arrest, but those charges were dropped on Monday.
The police brutality, in this case, strikes close to home as the town remembers 15 years ago (to the week of this incident) the horrific death of James Byrd Jr. Byrd, a black man, was killed as part of an infamous, racially-charged hate crime in Jasper when three white men tied a rope around his neck and dragged him behind their pickup until he was decapitated.
“The more things change, the more they remain the same,” Jasper City Council Member Alton Scott said of the Jasper's racial issues.
Sources: The Blaze, Yahoo News Reported by Opposing Views 10 hours ago.