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Video footage of 12 NYPD officers pulling a half-naked, asthmatic woman from her Brooklyn apartment and arresting her has surfaced.
The video, released by the New York Daily News, depicts the Jul. 13 arrest of Denise Stewart. According to the Daily News, police arrived at the 48-year-old's apartment shortly before midnight after receiving a 911 call from the building. Though they were not provided with a specific address, they knocked on Stewart's door after hearing shouting coming from the apartment.
Stewart, clad in just a towel, opened the door and told police that they had arrived at the wrong home. Still, she was yanked into the building's hallway in just her underwear as the towel covering her body fell to the ground during the fracas. Several officers can be seen pinning the woman to a wall while neighbors can be heard shouting about her asthma and Stewart is heard calling for her oxygen. The Daily News adds that Stewart allegedly bit an officer's finger during the chaos, and she was left undressed in the hallway until a female officer covered her with a towel.
Furthermore, police discovered Stewart's 12-year-old daughter inside with injuries to her face which she claimed came from her mother and older sister striking her with a belt.
Stewart was ultimately arrested and charged with assault. Both she and her 20-year-old daughter, Diamond, were charged with acting in a manner injurious to a child, resisting arrest, and criminal possession of a weapon. Her 24-year-old son, Kirkland, was also arrested and charged with resisting arrest, while the 12-year-old girl was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, criminal mischief, and assaulting an officer for kicking a police car door and kicking out one of the vehicle's windows, which injured an officer.
According to Stewart's attorney, Amy Rameau, the incident is an enormous misunderstanding. Rameau told the Daily News that the 911 call that triggered it came from another floor in the building. A spokesperson for the NYPD reportedly told the Daily News that the Internal Affairs division is looking into the situation.
This is the latest of several videos to emerge showing excessive force by the NYPD in the wake of Eric Garner's death at the hands of an NYPD officer in Staten Island on Jul. 17. On Friday, the city medical examiner declared the 43-year-old's death a homicide, ruling that the chokehold applied by the officer was the cause of his death.
[via New York Daily News]
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