News / Human Rights

US police, arrest beat woman who filmed Garner death

Friday, 13 March 2015 9:02 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 13 March 2015 9:23 AM ]

Taisha Allen said on Thursday that she was targeted and beaten by police because she filmed a video of Eric Garner's death while in police custody.

The woman who filmed a video of Eric Garner's killing by police last summer says she has been arrested and beaten by police because of her recording of the black man’s painful death.

Taisha Allen, one of the two people who recorded the chokehold death of Garner, told US TV channel PIX 11 News on Tuesday that she was being targeted by officers from the New York Police Department for her role in the Garner case.

Allen has an injured arm and several bruises, which she said are proof of police brutality.

She said the incident happened two weeks ago when she was trying to help her friend who was being arrested by police.

Allen said police officers had a problem with her because she recorded and released a video of Garner. “The officer said, ‘you are that little girl from the Eric Garner case.'”

"He was like 'Oh, you're the [expletive] from the Eric Garner case'," Allen told PIX 11 News. "He grabs me, throws me over the gate and beats me with the baton on my back. He drags me from the gate then took my arms and said stop resisting arrest."

Garner, a 43-year-old African American, died after being placed in the chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo on Staten Island on July 17.

According to the medical examiner's office, the cause of the death was "compression of neck (chokehold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.”

Garner’s death and a grand jury's decision not to indict the killer cop sparked protests across the United States in December.

After the incident, CBS News interviewed Taisha Allen. "It's crazy, and I was like, 'Perform CPR on him,' and they was like, 'He don't need CPR,'" Allen said. "He was not breathing at the time."

The US has recently been confronted with a series of images of police brutality, where unarmed black men have died after encounters with police.

On March 6, a white police officer shot and killed a 19-year-old African American. Madison's police Chief Mike Koval acknowledged that the teenager was unarmed.

The killing of several unarmed black men by white police officers in recent months and decisions by grand juries not to indict the officers triggered large-scale protests across the US.

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