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A South L.A. woman says she was thrown to the ground by a male LAPD officer as she tried to record her neighbor’s own violent altercation with police, and the whole thing was caught on video.Deirdre Mehmood said she grabbed her cellphone when she saw police using a Taser on her neighbor, whose home had been vandalized, prompting the LAPD response.As she tried to record police actions, a female officer reacted angrily, and then a male officer threw Mehmood the pavement, the video appears to show."He never gave me a command to 'get back,' or 'hey, stop.' He never says anything to me," Mehmood said.Read KTLA's story here: http://ktlane.ws/1JdIzAY
Posted by KTLA 5 News on Friday, May 1, 2015
On February 7, Deirdre Mehmood said she heard what she thought was a fight at her neighbor's on the 1300 block of West 57th Street, and went outside to record the incident on her cellphone when she saw it was the police confronting her neighbor. "I see the police Tasing my neighbor, whose house has been vandalized," Mehmood told KTLA. "They started telling us to get back, but I'm like, I've got to get this on film. They're wrong."
In a grainy cellphone video, shot by another neighbor and given to the station, you can see Mehmood filming the police with a bright light shining right in the face of a female officer. The female officer yells at Mahmood to "Get out of my face!" and pushes her away when another officer gets in between them. In the ensuing scuffle, Mehmood is thrown to the ground by the intervening cop.
"He never gave me a command to 'get back,' or 'hey, stop.' He never says anything to me," she said. Brittany Voss, who also witnessed the incident, says police told Mehmood to stop videotaping and threatened to put her in jail if she continued to do so.
Citizens have the right to videotape the police.
According to the Mehmood, her neighbor had called the police to his residence after it had been vandalized, but wound up being Tased by the police instead. "I just went straight down. They took me down and continued to Tase me," said her neighbor Aaron Lofist.
Mehmood says she suffered a torn ligament and shattered bone as a result of being thrown down by the police officer and required surgery. When she was interviewed by KTLA on Thursday, she wore a sling.
A claim contending that Mehmood's rights were violated and that she was subject to excessive force was filed against the LAPD on March 5. Officials have 45 days to respond, and if they do not she may go forward with a civil lawsuit—which she says she will do.
"I am a big supporter of the police. Always have," she said. "But now I'm not so sure," .
The LAPD said they had no comment while Internal Affairs was handling the case.
Related: New ACLU App Helps You Report Police Behaving Badly
