A woman is suing the LAPD after being mysteriously thrown from a moving police car while handcuffed. Back on Mar. 17, Kim Nguyen and two friends were reportedly waiting for a designated driver to pick them up from a restaurant parking lot when they were approached by two officers who rode past in a police vehicle. The cops questioned the trio before leaving, only to return when Nguyen was crossing the street.
Nugyen's lawyer, Arnoldo Casillas, says his client was handcuffed and thrown in the back of the vehicle. She said that police told her she was being arrested for suspicion of public intoxication. She also remembered cops refusing to tell her friends where she was being taken.
Casillas got surveillance footage from a building in the area which shows the vehicle travelling east on Olympic Boulevard, then shows Nguyen lying on the pavement with blood on her face just moments later. Though Nguyen says she does not remember falling out of the vehicle, she adds that she couldn't have opened the door because she was handcuffed.
She suffered a shattered jaw, lost several teeth and experienced bleeding to her brain. The Los Angeles Times reviewed a paramedics report which says police told them Nguyen had fallen out of the car while it accelerated to about 10 miles per hour after coming to a complete stop. This contradicts the video, which shows the car moving much faster and never stopping.
According to LAPD Commander Andrew Smith, it's unknown whether an internal investigation was previously opened, but one would be launched in response to Nguyen's claims. He added that patrol cars come with locks that officers are supposed to secure when shuttling suspects around. It's still unclear exactly how Nguyen fell out of the car, but her suit will certainly get to the bottom of that.
[via Los Angeles Times]
