California Woman Filming Arrest In Her Own Yard Is Left With Scars After Police Manhandle Her For Obstruction;

A California moth­er and daugh­ter have filed a law­suit against police offi­cers for exces­sive force. 
Mariah Hereford and her moth­er Monet Hereford said Hemet Police vio­lent­ly arrest­ed them and Mariah’s fiancé in front of their home while her chil­dren watched. The inci­dent was cap­tured on video and also wit­nessed by neighbors.
“Help! Help! You’re hit­ting my head! Help!” Mariah screamed and cried in cell­phone video.

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The Hereford’s attor­ney said an offi­cer grabbed Mariah by the hair and repeat­ed­ly slammed her head on the ground. The offi­cer hooked his fin­gers under­neath the woman’s jaw and yanked her, attor­ney Toni Jaramilla said. The inci­dent left Mariah with a con­cus­sion, bruis­es and a scar.

Mariah and her moth­er said they were record­ing Hemet police offi­cers as they arrest­ed her fiancé when offi­cers knocked their phones out of their hands and grabbed the women.

Cellphone video cap­tured the offi­cers as they wres­tled with fam­i­ly pets while Hereford’s four chil­dren cried and screamed. Hemet Police Chief Eddie Pust said the old­er woman refused to back away when asked. Body cam­era video shows that the offi­cers were con­fronting the younger woman about car keys when they arrest­ed her.
Attorneys said Ryan Gadison was on his way home from work last March when two Hemet Gang Enforcement offi­cers fol­lowed him in his 2020 Dodge Challenger. They flagged him in his driveway.
Mariah, Monet and the chil­dren, who are between the ages of 3 and 9, met Gadison out­side. Police offi­cials said Gadison repeat­ed­ly honked his horn.

Gadison told the offi­cers he was ner­vous because of the “stereo­type” about inter­ac­tions between Black men and white police offi­cers, video shows. The offi­cer tells Gadison, he is “mis­in­formed.” The body cam­era video shows the offi­cer told Gadison that his license was sus­pend­ed and ordered him to put down his keys and wal­let down and get out of the car. The offi­cer also asked for per­mis­sion to search Gadison’s car. Gadison refused, the video shows.
Can you get a lit­tle clos­er and record this guy,” Gadison said as he motioned to the women.
“I am record­ing,” the offi­cer said in the video.
Gadison threw the keys out of his win­dow. Police said he threw it in the same direc­tion as the women.

The attor­neys said offi­cers tar­get­ed Gadison because he was “dri­ving while Black” in a “nice” car. Cellphone video shows Gadison was pinned to the car and arrest­ed. The attor­neys said the police searched his car but noth­ing ille­gal was found.
Cellphone video show offi­cers approached Mariah Hereford’s 54-year-old moth­er and told her to “back up” and “move” as she filmed the arrest.
When the video panned away, an offi­cer knocked the cell­phone to the ground and “threw her against the vehi­cle and tight­ly hand­cuffed her,” the family’s attor­neys allege. Video from Mariah Hereford’s phone shows the arrest, and police body cam­era video also con­firmed. Pust said the women were get­ting in “close prox­im­i­ty to the offi­cers.” Body cam­era video showed the exchange between offi­cers and the moth­er and daugh­ter before Monet Hereford was arrested.

“I am going to take both of you to jail if you don’t back up,” an offi­cer said.

“For what?” Both of the women asked.

“For obstruct­ing an arrest,” the offi­cer said.

“I am ask­ing a ques­tion,” one of the women said off camera.

A hand­cuffed Gadison told Mariah to stand by the dogs that were chained clos­er to the house as one of the offi­cers attempt­ed to pull him away to the squad car, the body cam­era video shows. He also instruct­ed one of the women to close his car door and lock it. The attor­neys allege that a male offi­cer searched the old­er woman by grab­bing and prob­ing between her legs and groin area, even though a female offi­cer was present. “This case is just atro­cious,” Jaramilla said. “They had an absolute right to video­tape what was hap­pen­ing, and that was what caused them to get angry and retal­i­ate and vio­late their rights when they were doing that.” Mariah Hereford backed away from the car after her mother’s arrest and stood near the dogs. Officers approached her, the video shows. In the cell­phone footage, she can be heard scream­ing “back up,” “let go of me,” as her phone appears to hit the ground. The cell­phone video went dark, but the phone still cap­tured the audio.

Police body cam­era shows one of the dogs bit an offi­cer as he charged at Hereford. Another offi­cer pulled the dog off from the back of its col­lar, and Hereford tried to grab the dog from officers.

“Rocky! Rocky! Let go, Rocky!” Hereford said.

The body cam­era video showed Mariah Hereford con­tin­ued to reach for the dog as offi­cers con­tin­ued to pull it away.

“Let go of the key now,” an offi­cer said.

“I don’t have the key. Get out of my face,” Hereford said. She placed one hand up and anoth­er offi­cer grabbed the other.

“Shut your f — ing mouth,” an offi­cer said.

“No, you shut your f — ing mouth,” Hereford said.

Body worn cam­era shows the offi­cers tack­led the woman. The children’s screams and cries over­pow­ered the sound of an active car alarm. Hereford let out sev­er­al screech­es and cries for help. At one point, she told police offi­cers that they hit her head. The entire scuf­fle was not caught on video. “Stop! Just give them what they want! Just give them what they want,” one of the chil­dren said. The voice stretch­es over all the oth­er noise. “Please! Stop! Leave her alone! Leave her alone!” The Herefords have filed a civ­il rights law­suit against Hemet and its offi­cers and are seek­ing dam­ages for vio­la­tion of rights, tres­pass­ing, wrong­ful arrests and impris­on­ment, emo­tion­al dis­tress, assault and battery.

The attor­neys said Gadison and Monett Hereford were each arrest­ed for obstruct­ing arrest, a mis­de­meanor. Mariah Hereford was arrest­ed for resist­ing a peace offi­cer result­ing in injury, a felony, but no actu­al charges were filed against any­one. “The fight against injus­tice and vio­lence against women is also about law enforce­ment need­less­ly vio­lat­ing women for sport,” Jaramilla said. “Nothing about Mariah and Monett Hereford was a threat to these offi­cers or jus­ti­fied the bru­tal­i­ty these offi­cers inflict­ed on a moth­er and grand­moth­er,”Jaramilla said Americans have a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to record law enforce­ment offi­cers pro­tect­ed under the First Amendment.Federal case law states: Americans have “a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed right to video­tape police car­ry­ing out their duties.” “We should all do that because often­times, these videos are what’s going to be the key to achiev­ing jus­tice,” Jaramilla said. The Hemet Police Department did not respond to requests for com­ment, but the chief released a video state­ment with body cam­era footage on March 14.

“The Hemet Police Department takes claims of exces­sive use of force or mis­con­duct very seri­ous­ly,” Pust said. “We believe it is impor­tant to be trans­par­ent and pro­vide fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion to the pub­lic as soon as pos­si­ble to uphold depart­ment account­abil­i­ty, main­tain trust with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. First appeared @ AtlantaBlackstar

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