Video Shows a White San Jose Cop Kick a Handcuffed Latino Woman in the Stomach & Drag her Across the Pavement Face First as Another White Cop Points a Gun at Kids To Enforce Car Registration Law

From [HERE] and [HERE] A white San Jose police officer seen in cellphone video kicking and dragging a woman across a parking lot during an arrest has been placed on administrative leave, pending an internal affairs investigation of the incident, CBS San Francisco reports.

The arrest happened Wednesday in a McDonald's parking lot.

A Door Dash worker was picking up an order when he noticed a commotion involving police and started recording. The minute-long cell phone video, recorded Wednesday afternoon by San Jose resident Josh Gil, who witnessed the incident, shows a woman sitting outside a silver car as a police officer stands a few feet away. Within a few seconds, the officer appears to dart toward the woman and kick her in the side — sending her face-down onto the pavement — before handcuffing her.

He then drags her several feet by the wrists across the pavement toward an unmarked police SUV - face first.. The footage ends as the woman leans, upright, against the squad car, hands behind her back.

“It was nothing like she was trying to run or anything — she was already on her knees, there wasn’t much she could have done,” Jonathan Gastelum, another eyewitness to the incident, said Friday.

Gastelum, a San Jose resident, said he pulled into the parking lot of the McDonald’s at 28th and Santa Clara streets as the encounter unfolded, and saw the officer drag the woman across the sidewalk, shouting “Shut up,” and “I told you so.” A second officer, meanwhile, appeared to have his gun trained on the woman’s vehicle, where two children sat inside crying as another woman yelled that they had “just bought the car.”

In an initial summary of the encounter, police wrote that the woman was arrested without incident. But Gastelum said that’s not how it appeared.

“It was a scary situation for everybody,” Gastelum said. “It was just — it was just bad.”

The video was shared to social media Thursday afternoon, after Gil sent it to friends, and was first reported in San José Spotlight. By Friday, it had been viewed more than 9,000 times.

“No child should ever have to see their mother endure that type of brutality, you know?” Gil told this news organization. “Even if she was guilty of the crime they suspected her of committing, there was no reason for them to use excessive force while she was complying. There’s absolutely no reason for that.”

"If anyone wanted a prime example of use of excessive force by a police officer, this incident is one," LaDoris Cordell, a retired judge and a former San Jose Independent Police Auditor who has reviewed police use of force cases for the city, told CBS SF.

"She is kneeling on the ground, there is no resistance. The officer then kicks her in the abdomen. He grabs her and drags her across the asphalt so her face is dragging on the ground to locate her away from the car. Again, another excessive use of force," she said.

Police said the officers conducted the car stop because the vehicle was wanted for evading officers on July 18, and again earlier Wednesday. San Jose police Chief Eddie Garcia said police had sought the silver car for a week, after officers tried to pull it over for an expired registration on July 18 and its driver fled. That prompted police to obtain a seizure warrant for the car; when officers tried to stop it on July 21, it sped away again. Officers saw the car again Wednesday and conducted. Really? Cops pulling people over for having dead tags during a pandemic? And then getting a warrant for a traffic citation? These people are not here to help you - they are hunting you.

A statement released by the department said: "Officers used force during the arrest after the suspect failed to comply with their commands. The department has initiated an internal investigation into this incident."

"It's important to understand — and for the public to understand fully — what exactly happened here. Having said that, it's not obvious that justifies the use of force we see in this video," said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo.

Liccardo said he asked Police Chief Eddie Garcia to immediately release officer's bodycam video of the McDonald's incident.

The suspect who police arrested in the video was booked into jail on minor charges, including resisting arrest, driving on a suspended license and possession of paraphernalia, according to CBS SF.

The incident is the latest in a series of controversies to hit the San Jose Police Department, including excessive force allegations stemming from Black Lives Matter protests in early June and reports of a secret Facebook group on which officers exchanged racist posts. Four officers are currently on leave in connection with the investigation into the private Facebook group.

Cordell told CBS SF that the recent incident points to a larger problem withing the department.

"This is not, in my view, about a bad apple. This is about a bad culture," Cordell said.