For the second time in a week, the Los Angeles sheriff’s department is facing scrutiny over a brutal force incident, this time after a deputy was caught on camera punching a mother twice in the face as she held her newborn baby.
The LA county sheriff, Robert Luna, on Wednesday released footage of the July 2022 incident in Palmdale, north-east of the city of Los Angeles.
The encounter started when deputies stopped a car being driven without headlights at night, Luna said. The officers said they smelled alcohol, according to the sheriff, and saw there were three women in the car who were holding their babies and didn’t have children’s car seats.
The footage begins with one mother seated on the ground holding her baby, surrounded by deputies demanding she hand the child to them. As she pleads for them to let her go, noting she has a car seat at home, one deputy says: “Do you want me to grab the baby or are you going to hand the baby over nicely? … I don’t want to have to snatch her and have my partner grab your arms. We’re going to take the baby one way or another.”
“No, no, please let me hold on to her, please,” she cries, asking if the officers could drive her home. “Why are you taking my baby?” she says. Eventually, the officers forcibly grab the child from her as she weeps.
The footage later captures officers surrounding and grabbing another woman’s baby. “You’ll have to shoot me dead before you take my baby,” she can be heard crying, adding that the officers are going to hurt the infant.
The video captures an officer twice punching one of the mothers during the chaotic arrest, before the woman is grabbed by officers and handcuffed.
Police said the male driver was arrested on suspicion of driving on a suspended license, driving under the influence of alcohol and child endangerment. Four women in the car were held on suspicion of child endangerment.
A spokesperson for the sheriff’s department said prosecutors declined to file charges against the women. It’s not clear how long the families had been separated.
Luna, the LA sheriff, said on Wednesday that the punching was “completely unacceptable” and that he would alert the FBI and had directed his staff to send the case to LA county prosecutors to consider criminal charges. A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said Thursday that the sheriff’s department had not yet presented a case to prosecutors.
Luna said he believed the punching was “an isolated incident committed by an individual who will be held accountable”. He added the deputy was no longer on field duty, but that he was barred by law from disclosing further details about disciplinary actions the officer may have faced.
It is unclear if any of the other officers have faced any disciplinary action.
Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, said the video was “enraging and disturbing” in a statement on Wednesday night, adding: “The idea that you would assault a mother with a child in her arms and then subject that child to the child welfare system just because the child didn’t have a car seat is an abuse of power. When a child goes into the child welfare system, it can take months for that child to be returned. That process can result in lifelong trauma for both the mother and the child.”
Wednesday’s announcement was the second in a week relating to a brutal force incident. On 5 July, Luna said two deputies had been pulled from field duty after video surfaced of a deputy in neighboring Lancaster violently tackling a woman while she filmed a man being handcuffed, then pepper-spraying her in the face on 24 June.
The LA sheriff’s department has long been plagued by scandals and Luna was elected last year on promises of reform. The agency, the largest county sheriff’s office in the US, faces continued scrutiny over horrific jail conditions and repeated incidents of brutal force captured on film.
Federal monitors continue to oversee reforms that the department agreed to for the Lancaster and Palmdale stations, which are among the busiest in the county.
In 2015, the sheriff’s department settled federal allegations that deputies in those stations had engaged in excessive use of force and racially biased policing that included disproportionately stopping or searching Black and Latino people.
