Body cam video shows arrest of Texas "cop watcher" who claims officers used excessive force
FORT WORTH – Police have released body cam footage showing the arrest of Carolyn Rodriguez, a self-described "cop watcher" who claims Fort Worth police officers used excessive force while arresting her on Sunday.
The video released Wednesday afternoon by the Fort Worth Police Department shows one of the officers asking Rodriguez to move multiple times while she was recording Fort Worth police investigating a hit-and-run incident.
In response, she asks the officer "Why?" After the officer tells her she is "under arrest," the video shows Rodriguez falling to the ground.
Rodriguez told CBS News – before the video was released – she was knocked unconscious and her elbow came out of its socket.
"I don't remember an officer hitting me, but I remember him tackling me, grabbing me from behind," Rodriguez said. "The next thing I know is I woke up in the hospital, chained to the bed, handcuffed to the bed."
After she was released from the hospital, police booked her in the Tarrant County jail on multiple charges, including resisting arrest and interference of public duties.
She said she now has "bad injuries" and bruises "everywhere."
Rodriquez calls herself a "First Amendment auditor" and created her own YouTube channel to document actions by Fort Worth police.
"My motivation is to keep the people that don't know their rights safe," she told CBS News Texas.
In the case of Sunday's incident, she said she was driving around the West 7th area when she saw a group of officers in a parking lot around 3 a.m. and started following and recording them for more than 20 minutes.
She said this wasn't her first arrest and that such incidents have happened to her before in Fort Worth and other cities.
"I've been arrested like this probably about five or six times," she said.
Rodriguez said she plans to file a civil suit against the Fort Worth Police Department.
The Fort Worth City Council plans to hold an executive session to discuss the incident on Friday.