ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Two state lawmakers say a Florida deputy used unnecessary force by smashing a woman’s window, making her bleed on her face, after she stopped alongside a group of demonstrators protesting police abuse and later refused orders to get out of her car.
Body-cam video released by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Orlando shows Wednesday’s incident, which caught the attention of protesters who shouted at deputies, “What did she do?”
The video shows the deputy pulling the woman over in a nearby parking lot, where he shouts “Get out of the car!”
When the woman asks why through her partially rolled-down driver’s side window, the deputy says “Do you want to go to jail? Seriously? Either get out of the car or you’re going to jail.”
The deputy later explains that she had committed a traffic violation by stopping next to demonstrators in the street. The woman says she wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“Your choice. I’m trying to be nice,” the deputy says, then reaches through her window to open the door. The woman tells him to stop and rolls up the window on his arm. He then smashes it with his baton, shattering the glass before handcuffing her and putting her in a squad car.
“I’m bleeding, I need an ambulance,” she later repeats, spitting blood from her mouth onto the pavement after he calls to get her medical help.
The woman had minor cuts, according to sheriff’s office officials, who also said the car had lurched forward.
Sheriff John Mina described the incident as “troubling,” at a news conference on Thursday, adding that an internal inquiry had been opened.
Two Democratic state lawmakers from Orlando, Rep. Carlos Smith and Rep. Anna Eskamani, criticized the deputy. Smith called it “disgusting behavior” in a tweet, saying the deputy “unnecessarily escalates the situation from 0 to 1000 in seconds over a stupid traffic violation.”
Demonstrators in Florida and around the world have held daily protests against racism and police brutality following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.
Their movement was joined Friday by Jacksonville’s NFL team. A large group of Jaguar players, coaches, front-office officials and their families wore Black Lives Matter T-shirts as they walked from TIAA Bank Field to the sheriff’s headquarters to “raise awareness for racial injustices against the Black community.”
“For many Americans, now is the moment. Never has that been clearer,” the NFL team said in a Facebook post.
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