Photo: Wildwood Police Department
Police in a New Jersey town are investigating an incident caught on viral video of a police officer punching a woman in the head during a violent confrontation on the beach Saturday.
“She refused to comply,” the mayor said on Monday. “Unfortunately this is what happened.”
Wildwood Police Department
Wildwood Police Chief Robert Regalbuto labeled the video “alarming” but cautioned he did “not want to rush to judgment” until an internal investigation is complete, according to a post on the department’sFacebook page.
It was the scandal that rocked America’s most storied political family and changed the course of presidential history.PEOPLE‘s first-ever podcast,Cover-Up, dives into the Chappaquiddick scandal and attempts to piece together what happened in the hours after Ted Kennedy’s car went over a narrow wooden bridge, killing his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. Subscribe now onApple Podcasts,Spotify,Google Playor wherever podcasts are available.
Stephen Dicht, Weinman’s attorney, said the allegations against her were overblown. “The number of people who think she got what she deserved is appalling,” he said,Philly.com reports.
Weinman defended herself in a Facebook message she sent to a reporter for thePhiladelphia InquirerandDaily Newsand denied an allegation that she spit on the officers, according to the online outlet. “[T]the cops smashed my head into the ground when he tackled me and I spit the sand out of my mouth,” she wrote. “So no, it is not true.”
The body cam video shows the build-up to the altercation.
Officers approached after seeing alcohol on the beach near Weinman, who said she was sitting with her 18-month-old daughter, the daughter’s father and a friend. She told them it belonged to her aunt.
In a since-deleted Facebook post, Weinman wrote she had beer with her but was not drinking any and saidshe submitted to the officers’ request for a Breathalyzer test and it came back negative, Philly.com reports.
An officer made Weinman and the other woman pour out the alcohol and said he would let them go with no citation.
“How are you going to ‘let us go’? We didn’t even drink alcohol,” Weinman responds, before repeatedly refusing to give the officer her name.
• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage?Click hereto get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.
When he asks another officer for handcuffs, she replies, “Don’t cuff me!” prompting the officer’s short pursuit as she moves to leave.
“Alright, you’re about to get dropped!,” he says, before the pair begin to wrestle, with Weinman in the sand and the officer on top of her.
“I cannot breathe!” she says at one point.
During the scuffle, the officer punches her twice.
On Facebook, Weinman wrote: “Yes, i know I should’ve gave him my name. I was partly wrong in a way but I was scared.”
The officers involved, who were not identified, have been reassigned to administrative duty “pending the outcome of a full and thorough investigation,” police said in their statement on Facebook.
source: people.com
