Aurora Cops Choke & Slam Black Woman After She Withdraws Consent to Search & Seize Her Car: Jailed for 7 days: Suit Filed
/The 4th Amendment Does Not Protect Black People. From [HERE] A 23-year-old Black woman filed an excessive force lawsuit Monday against three Aurora officers.
OyZhana Williams alleges Aurora Police Sergeant Michal Hawkins, and officers Jordan Odneal and Jose Ortiz physically assaulted her and made up a false charge against her during a 2015 arrest.
The civil rights lawsuit, filed by Williams’ attorneys in federal court, alleges the Aurora officers choked her and slammed her against the pavement during a scuffle outside the emergency room at the University of Colorado Hospital. The suit also alleges that the plaintiff was wrongfully detained for several days following the arrest.
A hospital surveillance camera captured the arrest, and the video was released Tuesday by Williams’s attorney, Adam Frank. The Aurora Police Department said it was not aware of the excessive force complaint until the lawsuit was filed.
According to the lawsuit, the incident began after Williams’ boyfriend, Blake Newton, was shot in the early morning hours of Dec. 22, 2015. Williams took Newton in her car to the hospital’s ER, where she was met by the Aurora officers named in the suit.
The officers, tasked with investigating the shooting, told Williams that her car would be towed so it could be searched and examined, the lawsuit says. Williams was initially cooperative with the investigation until Sgt. Hawkins demanded Williams “give him the keys to the car,” which police had no legal claim to seize, the suit alleges. While the vehicle the shooting victim was transported in might be considered a secondary crime scene, which police had the right to seize, the keys were not considered evidence, the lawsuit contends. [wha? It was her car, not his. She was not charged with involvement in a crime with the boyfriend? This statement by "her advocate" here only would make legal sense if the boyfriend used the car to commit a crime. Driving someone, including a person suspected of a crime to a hospital does not provide cops a 4th Amendment basis to seize & search. She withdrew her consent to search and cops had no warrant.]