Police punch teen girl after mistaking her for black male suspect

‘I told him I can’t breathe’: Police punch teen girl after mistaking her for black male suspect
Hey look. A police abuse story! This one will be fun. Let's read on.

On the day Tatyana Hargrove rode her bike to try to buy her dad a Father’s Day gift, temperatures in Bakersfield, Calif., had reached triple digits, so she stopped on the way home to take a drink of water in the shade.

The 19-year-old girl turned around at the intersection where she had paused and noticed three police cars. One of the officers, she said, had already drawn his gun.

What followed, according to both Hargrove and police, was a case of mistaken identity and an altercation in which police punched Hargrove in the mouth, unleashed a police K-9 dog on her and arrested her.

Well at least no one died. Man that is depressing when I have to say something like that when one of these incidents happen... ANYWAYS, check this out:

On the day police stopped Hargrove, officers had been looking for a suspect — described as a 25- to 30-year-old, bald black man standing 5-foot-10 and weighing about 170 pounds — who had threatened several people with a machete at a nearby grocery store, according to a police report.

“She appeared to be a male and matched the description of the suspect that had brandished the machete and was also within the same complex the suspect had fled to,” Christopher Moore, the arresting officer, wrote in his report.

BUUUUUT...

For starters, she is female. She stands 5-foot-2 and weighs 115 pounds “soaking wet,” according to her father in a widely shared video of Hargrove’s account of the incident posted on the Facebook page for the Bakersfield chapter of the NAACP.

The girl knew her rights, but that didn't matter. The police had an attack dog. Attack dog trumps paperwork every time. Standard rock, paper, scissor rules right?:

When she asked if they had a warrant, one of the officers gestured toward a police K-9 behind him, she said.

“I then got scared and then I was like, here, take the backpack, just take the backpack,” Hargrove added.

After that, she said in the video, the officer grabbed her by her wrist, then punched her and threw her onto the ground; shortly afterward, the police K-9 “came and started eating at my leg.”
The same officer then put his knee on her back and other knee against her head, despite her protests, she said.

“I told him ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe’ and then I started yelling out, ‘Somebody help me, somebody help me! They’re gonna kill me!’” she said. “And then finally, he let me up, he tied my hands behind my back and then he tied my feet together and he threw me in the back of the car.”

For a fun time, you can read the police report on why the police are justifying punching a 19 year-old girl and sicking an attack dog on her.

In the police report, Moore wrote that Hargrove had “spun into” one of the officers with her left shoulder, causing him to fall backward, and then “quickly maneuvered her body to get back on top of him” after the officer punched her.

“At this time I was forced to quickly consider the following; [Hargrove] matched the description of the suspect that had brandished a machete, her backpack was within her arm’s reach and the main compartment was unzipped allowing her immediate access to the machete,” Moore wrote. After weighing whether he could use his Taser or baton on Hargrove, Moore wrote that he decided to unleash the police K-9, Hamer.

In the police report, Moore wrote that after officers placed Hargrove in a police car, she continued to scream out of the window at them for about five minutes.

“While Hargrove was in the backseat I asked what her name was and when she provided it as ‘Tatyana’ I said, ‘Don’t lie to me, that’s a girl’s name. What is your name?’ ” the police report stated. “Hargrove said, ‘I’m a girl, I just don’t dress like one.’ This was when I first discovered she was a female.”

"... and where I found out that I was now in deep #."

But fear not! Those fearing for the police's safety from this dangerous 19 year old girl/20-30 some balding machete wielding man police say the level of force used against Tatyana was justified.

A Bakersfield police spokesman told The Washington Post he would not comment further on the case but confirmed that the department had determined that the officers had exercised appropriate use of force on Hargrove.

“I read the paper, my paperwork, though, and it said that I shoved an officer and flipped him on his back,” she said in the video, adding a look of disbelief. “There were dogs and guns drawn on me. Like, I would never do anything like that.”

She's lucky they didn't plant a gun *AHEM* find a gun on her.

So I'll leave you with the thoughts of her father on this subject:

“Why should my daughter be charged with a crime? All she did was stop to drink some water because it was 100-something degrees. That’s ridiculous,” Hargrove’s father said in the video. “She was coming home to celebrate Father’s Day with me. It’s not right. It’s not right.”

That's right. She was on her way to celebrate Father's Day with her dad. "HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DAD! I just got arrested for drinking water and now have thousands of dollars in medical bills all for the sin of looking nothing like a perp who went into the same building I came from."

This was my favorite part of the article.

"Moore noted that “several nurses” at the hospital referred to Hargrove as a male and that “when I corrected them and advised she was a female they were surprised and apologized for the mistake.”

Bbwwaahahaha

a reply to: Bluntone22

Yeah he's just looking out for her dignity after mistaking her for a much older man, punching her in the face, kneeing her in the back, and sicking a police dog on her. You know, just being a gentleman? Duh. Obviously.

I just gota ask ... is it ok for cops to hit someone in the head at all. than with a closed fist ... maby im wrong but that seems like a act of violance not trying to control the situation

If thats normal use of force we should change the rules ...

Police statement just in...

We will investigate ourselves thoroughly... and let you know what we decide to do to ourselves.

I follow a few police brutality pages on Facebook, and the dog attacks are more common than you'd think.

Saw a guy handcuffed laying face down yesterday, with a massive Alsatian clamped onto his forearm...

Of course the policeman couldn't control the dog or get him off...

Get this bit though...

About 30 seconds of being savaged later, still facedown and handcuffed, two more officers come over slowly, grab his legs and not the dog, and pin him down for some extra savaging while officer number one still struggles to get the dog off the suspect.

Anecdotal, sure...
But if you follow the right Facebook pages you'll see these things daily.

People would rather ignore the thin blue line.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

All I'm going to say is damn how ugly must thus girl be?? On a serious note if the police thought she was the suspect using the K9 to take her down was smart. They are train ed how to subdue someone. It's really amazing I watched a show on it and how the dogs will take down huge guys.

This type of thing is only a minority of police.
The majority are nothing like this.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
This type of thing is only a minority of police.
The majority are nothing like this.

That might differ from department to department.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I hate when they let the dog chew on you for a bit, there is no reason for it and if you fight back to protect yourself from the dog you get charged like you hit a human cop. Dog bites cause a lot of infection, I got mauled by one myself it was my own dog that had mental problems. I have had dogs all my life and love them, but to let a police dog chew on a person in custody while they are down is just over the edge and should be stopped.

a reply to: Bluntone22

I would say there are as many bad cops as bad teachers. Maybe more so. They have an iq cap in several states and have terrible training and marsmanship skills. Also are protected by political Leo's and unions.

Yea, well, we all know nothing is going to happen to those cops.

Watch.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Sometimes you can f up on the job so bad it doesn't matter if the mistake was innocent or not; you still gotta pay the full price. This sounds like one of those f ups.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: Krazysh0t

All I'm going to say is damn how ugly must thus girl be?? On a serious note if the police thought she was the suspect using the K9 to take her down was smart. They are train ed how to subdue someone. It's really amazing I watched a show on it and how the dogs will take down huge guys.

But they didn't use the dog to take her down. She was on the ground already when the dog started biting her.

originally posted by: Guiltyguitarist
a reply to: Krazysh0t

Sometimes you can f up on the job so bad it doesn't matter if the mistake was innocent or not; you still gotta pay the full price. This sounds like one of those f ups.

Agreed. There is no excuse for the way this went down.

what are the chances "she" is actually a guy with an identity problem?

originally posted by: lordcomac
what are the chances "she" is actually a guy with an identity problem?

Slim and none. Plus she has about a 50 pound difference in weight between her and the perp. Have you ever mistaken a 115 pound person for a 170 pound person? Oh yeah and the perp is apparently balding which she isn't.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: lordcomac
what are the chances "she" is actually a guy with an identity problem?

Slim and none. Plus she has about a 50 pound difference in weight between her and the perp. Have you ever mistaken a 115 pound person for a 170 pound person? Oh yeah and the perp is apparently balding which she isn't.

They're ally missed an opportunity to suggest they smelled Marijuana when they realized the weight was off after throwing her in the back seat.

(Looking at studies on police marksmanship could point to a depth perception or vision problem industry wide)

a reply to: luthier

It's legal in Cali now. They can't use that excuse anymore. They needed to drop a little baggy of crack or meth next to her and THEN they'd have a good excuse.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

It's probably still illegal in public to be black and smell like Marijuana.