Los Angeles civil rights activists have taken court action against a new case of police brutality in the US city.
Civil rights activists demand the US Justice Department to investigate the California Highway Patrol after an officer with the CHP was caught on video beating an African-American woman on the side of a Los Angeles freeway.
The video which was recorded by a passing driver shows the CHP cop chasing Marlene Pinnock, a 51-year-old great-grandmother, walking on Interstate 10 west of downtown Los Angeles. The cop grabs the woman who is either thrown to the ground or falls. The officer then starts to punch her several times in the face.
After the video went viral on the Internet, the CHP said that Pinnock was endangering herself and people in traffic by walking on the freeway and that the officer in question was trying to restrain her.
The woman was “talking to herself” and tried to walk into traffic on the freeway, a CHP officer said in an application he submitted in support of putting Pinnock on a 72-hour hold for mental evaluation.
Pinnock has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the officer and CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow, accusing the officer of using excessive force.
The officer “was bamming me in my temples with all the strength he had,” said Pinnock in her lawsuit.
The officer was identified in the lawsuit filed by Los Angeles attorney Caree Harper as Daniel Andrew.
“None of our agencies have come out and said a word about prosecuting this man criminally,” Harper told reporters. “It is not acceptable for the district attorney to say, ‘We are waiting on the CHP to do their internal investigation before we have our findings.’”
“We do not want a cut-and-paste investigation that is merely copying the words of the CHP and saying, ‘Oh, that was a justifiable beating,’” Harper added.
The incident sparked outrage from civil rights activists, politicians and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California who have called for an independent investigation.
“If in fact we feel, and we think that they will find, that civil rights violations occurred, namely the violations of Marlene Pinnock’s civil rights, a prosecution of the officer that beat Marlene Pinnock should be initiated by the Justice Department ,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson of Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable.
