Court Rules That Police Can Inflict Pain On Detained Individuals
Police across the country have often been caught using excessive force during arrests and other confrontations. Even when such incidents are captured on video, officers are often able to escape punishment or other consequences. Such appears to be the case yet again. In a controversial ruling, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that an officer who admitted to twisting a teenage girl’s arms to cause her pain did not violate the law in his actions.
The officer admitted to purposely hurting the teenage girl.
The case at the center of the controversial ruling involves Fort Worth, Texas, resident Jacqueline Craig and her young child. In 2016, Craig called the police to report an assault committed against her then-7-year-old son. Craig said that a neighbor choked the child for “littering” after the young boy had dropped raisins in the neighbor’s yard. But when Officer William Martin showed up on the scene, he berated Craig and her child.Martin ended up violently arresting the mother and her 19-year-old daughter, Brea Hymond, who intervened in the argument. In the process, Martin purposely hyperextended Hymond’s handcuffed arms, and he admits he did intend to force her to tell him her name and age after she initially refused to do so. Video footage of the encounter between the Craig family and Martin was eventually released online, showing the confrontation that also saw Martin using violence against Craig’s other underage teenage children during the encounter….
AC