“I’ve seen the video, you’ve seen the video,” said Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown, “It doesn’t look good.”
A Utah cop was caught on body camera using excessive force to smash a handcuffed woman’s face with his closed fist, just feet from her 9-year-old daughter, in retaliation for that woman allegedly spitting on the officer.
The first 90 seconds of the video below reveal a routine and peaceful arrest gone horribly wrong.
Salt Lake City cop Tyler L. Reinwand apprehended the woman peacefully, but less than a minute after taking in his suspect, and just after the officer finished articulating why he arrested “Michelle Anderson” her child walked up to her.
“She’s going to jail?” asked the girl, and let out a small wail when the answer was yes, Anderson’s daughter walked right up to her mother and hugged her.
The young child was buzzing excitedly around the police cruiser, assuring her mother that she’d be looked after, and placing her dolls and backpack and LED light toy onto the vehicle.
Veteran Utah cop Reinwand seemed pretty comfortable in the situation, and the officers displayed a casual familiarity with Jane.
The Salt Lake City cop let his partner the handcuffed Anderson, walked to his car to gather the little girl’s belongings, telling her that, “we’re going to sit in my car, gather your stuff.”
Then Officer Reinwand dropped the doll.
In a flash, the cop spun, took a two large steps towards Michelle Anderson and smashed his handcuffed prisoner’s face with maximum force.
The blow made Anderson shriek in pain, drop the ground and wail for minute in her handcuffs, her smashed face rubbed into the green grass of the front lawn of the suburban home where Officer Reinwand almost certainly broke her nose.
“You little bitch,” spat the officer at Anderson
“You spit on me,” said the enraged cop, “You cunt.”
“You pissed me off little bitch. You’re an idiot,” Officer Reinwand finished
“You’re spitting on someone, you deserve to have your ass kicked,” said the Utah cop as Anderson’s child cried ‘Mommy!’ loudly in the background of the video.
Then the two Utah officers covered Anderson’s face and head in a spit-guard.
As the two Salt Lake City cops put Anderson in the car, she said to, “call the Norwegian consulate,” for reasons that are unclear at this time.
Anderson was arrested for “verbal disturbance, disturbing peace and assault on police officer” according to Salt Lake Police Chief Mike Brown on October 10th, 2014. The Chief gave an impromptu press conference live streamed on to Facebook earlier today after the video was released to the public for the first time, which you can see below the video.
“We had a supervisor on scene,” asked Chief Brown incredulously, clearly upset at his chain of command’s failure to address the unwarranted use of force and breach of professional communications.
“Why are we dealing with this now?”
It’s because viral video was suppressed for 18 months, now only released after criminal proceedings ended against Anderson.
The child’s last name is Anderson, we are withholding her first name for privacy reasons though she provided the video originally to CopBlock.org, hence calling the woman in the video “Michelle Anderson” based on the video.
Salt Lake City detective Shipping is working on confirming the real identity of “Michelle Anderson” and case files for PINAC News according to national investigator Felipe Hemming.
Graham vs. Connor is the landmark Supreme Court ruling governing use of force by police officers. It’s applies a totality of the circumstances approach to judging the appropriate level of force in response to a citizen.
In this case, Anderson was already handcuffed and under physical control.
Certainly, placing a spit-guard over the prisoner’s head is a humiliating step anytime, but more so in front of anyone’s child, and would be sufficient to restrain a prisoner from a repeat offense.
Eventually, that’s what the two officers did do.
But Salt Lake City Officer Tyler L. Reinwand had already stepped past the boundaries of enforcing the law, into carrying out corporal punishment.
Then cursed his suspect in most vile terms.
We don’t know why Officer Reinwand retired from his $114,000-per-year police job yet, but he has retired since the incident but before the video was released.
While it is a crime for a citizen to spit on an officer – if in fact Anderson did, and her contrition after getting her face smashed might indicate that she did, we are investigating court records now – it is further a crime by an officer to use excessive force on any prisoner in violation of their civil rights.
And nothing can excuse a male police officer decimating a female suspect while she’s defenselessly handcuffed, then spewing venomous words towards his victim all the while her young daughter is watching nearby.