Woman Involved In Weekend Altercation With BPD Officers Arrested

BALTIMORE, MD ­– The woman who was involved in an altercation with Baltimore police officers in which she struck an officer twice before she was hit from behind by another officer Friday night has been arrested, the department announced on Monday.

The department is declining to identify the woman, who was seen in videos that have been circulating on Instagram and Twitter and that launched an internal investigation over the weekend. The matter has been turned over to the State’s Attorney’s Office, the Baltimore Sun reported on Monday.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison ordered an immediate investigation into the matter by the department’s special investigations response team unit after he viewed the video of the incident. The officer who can be seen hitting the woman has had his police powers suspended by the Deputy Commissioner of the Public Integrity Bureau for the remainder of the investigation, the department announced over the weekend.

Harrison said in a news conference on Saturday that the woman was in the area where protests had started in Baltimore, rallying against the death of George Floyd last week in Minneapolis.

In the video, the woman can been seen punching an officer twice after it appeared that he grabbed her arms. After she swings at the officer the second time, another officer approaches her from behind and hits the woman near the head, which caused her to fall backward into the street. Police officials have declined to identify the officer.

Police officials indicated the woman was taken into custody and transported to an area hospital for an emergency petition.

Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young called the video footage “deeply disturbing” in a statement Saturday morning. The mayor said he instructed Harrison to tell officers citywide that “sound, constitutional policing is the only acceptable way we’re going to do things here in Baltimore under my watch.”

“I believe the first officer, who was struck multiple times by the woman, showed remarkable restraint by not retaliating as he was being assaulted,” Young said in a released statement. “The woman should have been placed under arrest and not assaulted. Our system of justice does not involve the concept of an ‘eye for an eye.”