A horrifying video clip shows a savage Florida cop repeatedly punching a 14-year-old girl while pinning her to the ground as he tries to arrest her. The video was posted to the social media platform Instagram on Thursday afternoon.
In the video, a 14-year-old girl is seen getting punched by a Coral Springs officer in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday afternoon. The cops had reportedly told the girl and her friends to leave the Coral Square Mall where they were seen hanging out. The cops had received a call about 30 unruly teenagers and they asked the girl and her friends to leave. The teenager reportedly 'back talked him' which lead to the punching and the girl's arrest.
A friend who witnessed the incident recorded the terrifying moment when the two burly cops pinned the teenager to the ground and started to repeatedly punch the child. In the nine-second video, the victim is seen laying on the grass with her face down as the two male officers forcefully hold her down.
One of the male cops pins her down using his knee which he digs into her upper back and then he proceeds to pummel the girl with punches into her rib cage. The girl's legs are seen kicking upon impact of the serious blows.
The girl behind the camera is heard screaming at the two adult cops to stop. "Why are you hitting her? She can't do it. She can't do that. Her head's underneath her. The f*** you hitting her for?" The video was shared online by a girl who claims to be the victim's cousin and she captioned the clip, "My 14yrs old cousin which is a girl should not have been handled this way".
The Coral Springs Police department are defending their actions and justifying the use of the excessive force. They say that the video clip does not show the entire story and the cop did not go against protocol. The teenager's mother Jessica Dennis told CBS Miami, "I'm pissed. I'm angry. I would never expect this to happen".
"He went completely overboard. It was completely unnecessary. Her hands are pinned up, he’s fishtailing her whole body with her shorts, it was just too much going on and she clearly wasn’t aggressive," she added. The victim has not given out her name and has also refused to be on camera.
Meeghan Moldof, the victim's attorney, shared, "I'm not going to comment on the criminal aspect of the case. But to say that the police officer was justified to punch her continuously while he has his knee on her back and her hands under her belly... The video speaks for itself".
The Deputy Chief Brad McKeone said, "The officer's actions were 100 percent within policy, legal and were not excessive".
According to the police report, one woman said that "one of the teens knocked her five-year-old daughter down". The group was taken off the property and then, within an hour, a smaller group returned which is when the Coral Springs police also returned and arrested a male and also attempted to arrest the 14-year-old girl in the video. According to the police, she resisted arrest.
Deputy Chief McKeone said that the punches were not to harm the girl but were meant to gain compliance. "If he wanted to cause harm to her a punch would have been to the face, a punch would have been done to the back of the head. It's not done as a punishment, again, it's done to get compliance. Once she did that the officer immediately stopped any other form of distraction technique and immediately took her into custody".
The cops said that when they tried to put her into the police car, she kicked an officer. The Coral Springs police revealed that they are not investigating the male officer who pummeled the teenager but they will have to if the teenager's mother chooses to file a complaint.
The Coral Springs Police issued a statement which read, "There is a video that is circulating showing CSPD officers arresting a 14-year old female at the Coral Square Mall on October 18, 2018. As with all social media posts, it shows only the end of the story, not the incident in its entirety which led up to the arrest".
The cops added that the teenagers were "harassing patrons and causing a disturbance" which resulted in them getting banned from the mall. "The Coral Springs Police Department believes in transparency. It is important for people to have all of the facts before rushing to judgment of an officer’s actions when faced with calls for service involving violent suspects — regardless of their age or gender," the post concluded.