Woman punched by New Jersey officer on beach indicted on several counts
WILDWOOD, N.J. -- A Philadelphia who was arrested at a New Jersey beach over Memorial Day weekend has been indicted on two counts of aggravated assault of a police officer, CBS Philly reports. Emily Weinman also faces single counts of resisting arrest, throwing bodily fluids, and obstruction in the indictment handed up last week by a Cape May County grand jury.
Weinman's controversial arrest was caught on video. Widely-shared cellphone footage showed one officer pinning down the 20-year-old as another hit her several times.
Wildwood New Jersey police officers attempted to cite the 20-year-old for possessing alcohol at the beach. She said she wasn't drinking and the alcohol containers around her were sealed. Weinman willingly took two breathalyzer tests. Both came back negative.
"I ask them, 'Do you guys have anything better to do?' There's so much stuff going on and you're trying to stop people for underage drinking and you see I didn't drink," Weinman said. "He was like, 'That's it. I was going to let you go, but now I'm going to write you up.'"
She admits she had "a little attitude."
"He hadn't told her that she had committed any crime. He hadn't told her, 'I'm going to issue you a summons.' He hadn't told her any of those things. And then he says, 'Oh, you're about to get dropped,'" said Weinman's attorney, Stephen Dicht.
In police bodycam video, Weinman told the officer, "Don't touch me."
"Alright, you're about to get dropped," the officer responded.
Moments later, the officer's body camera showed him on top of Weinman. He then appeared to hit her repeatedly. A bystander also caught the moment on their cell phone. The officer explained his use of force later on the bodycam.
"She tried kicking at us, so we slammed her on the ground," the officer said. "She kicked him. And then I just, I hit her a couple of times."
She was charged, among other things, with spitting on the officer.
"I got sand in my mouth. So when they smashed my head into the ground, I had all this sand in my mouth... when they got me on my stomach, I turned around to go spit it out," Weinman said.
Weinman said in June that she's not a criminal.
"I'm not a bad person," she told CBS News.
The officers involved were cleared of wrongdoing.
Weinman rejected a plea bargain offer in July.