A viral video of a woman being arrested last week forced the Atlanta Police Department to release the footage from the officer’s body camera. There were many accusing the officer seen in the video of excessive force. The arrest happened in Shady Valley Park on August 8, approximately fifty minutes after the park closed.
The video shows a couple, a man and a woman, being ticketed for being there after hours. The officer, Brooks, first asks the man to sign the ticket or face arrest and then calls for the woman to come over to the police car to also sign the citation. The man complies, but the woman is seen asking for the officer’s name and badge number, which he shares. She eventually tells him she won’t sign the ticket.
The police officer states, “Well, like I explained to him, if you don’t sign it, then you’re going to be physically taken to jail,” the woman refuses, and the situation escalates.
She was asked multiple times to put her hands behind her back. The woman repeatedly asks, “Why am I being arrested?” As the officer tries to put handcuffs on her, she decides, “I’m going to sign the ticket now.” The officer tells her it is too late to sign and continues to try and place her in restraints and arrest her.
In the statement made by the Atlanta Police Department, it states, “refusing to sign a citation is considered reasonable cause to believe the individual will not appear in court or pay the fine, and the officer may then physically arrest the individual so they can be brought before the court to post bond.”
It was also noted in the statement that they wanted to make it clear that the Atlanta Police officers have been instructed to increase their patrols of city parks as an effort to improve safety concerns after the homicide on August 2, 2022, in Wilson Mill Park and after the homicide on August 7, 2022, at Rosa L. Burney Park.