Video shows white officers throwing black woman to floor at Waffle House
An Alabama police department said it was investigating the arrest of a 25-year-old black woman at a Waffle House by three white officers over the weekend. The police department in Saraland, located just outside Mobile, said it was aware of video posted to social media that shows officers pushing the woman to the floor, during which her chest becomes exposed, and restraining her.
The video captured one officer telling the woman on the floor that he was about to break her arm.
"When the facts of the investigation are gathered, we will have a response," the police department said Sunday in a statement posted to Facebook.
The arrested woman was identified as Chikesia Clemons, CBS affiliate WKRG-TV reports. Her mother, Chiquitta Clemons-Howard, told AL.com that the incident stemmed from her daughter asking for plastic utensils as she was placing her order at the Waffle House early Sunday.
A woman working at the restaurant told Clemons that the utensils would cost 50 cents, Clemons-Howard told the website. Clemons and her friend, Canita Adams, told the woman that they didn't have to pay for utensils when they ate at the same Waffle House the previous night, according to Clemons-Howard.
The woman canceled the order, the mother said. Officers arrived at the Waffle House after Clemons asked for the contact information for the restautant's district manager.
"They didn't even ask her to leave, she was waiting for them to give her the district manager's card so she could file a complaint on one of the waitresses," Clemons-Howard told AL.com. "When they went to go get the card, that's when the police showed up. The officer should've come in and said we need you to leave."
Adams recorded some of Clemons' encounter with the officers on her cellphone. In the video, one officer is holding Clemons' right shoulder and wrist as she sits in a chair in the Waffle House.
The video then cuts to the officer and another officer throwing Clemons to the floor. Her top somehow gets pulled down, exposing her chest.
"What are you doing?" Clemons asks.
"I'm about to break your arm, that's what I'm about to do," one officer told Clemons.
The officers then try to get Clemons to lay face-down on the floor. As she resists, one officer briefly wraps his arm around her neck and places his hand on her neck while a third officer leans over and tells Clemons that she's being placed under arrest and to roll over.
"What am I doing wrong?" Clemons asks. "What did i do wrong? Y'all haven't told me anything that I did wrong."
Clemons-Howard told AL.com that her daughter was booked on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Clemons was released on $1,000 bond, her mother said.
