“Arellano struck her because she talked back to him—because she questioned him, objected to what he was doing, and declined to be silent while he did it,” the lawsuit alleges. “A closed-fist blow to the face of an unarmed eighteen-year-old girl is not a permissible answer to speech, and it is not a permissible answer to a detainee who pulls her arm away during handcuffing.”
An 18-year-old woman has filed a lawsuit after being slammed to the ground and struck in the face by an Arkansas State trooper.
According to NBC News, the lawsuit was filed earlier this week on behalf of Alisa Hackett, naming Arkansas State Trooper Moisses Arellano as defendant. In court documents, attorneys for Hackett say their client was unarmed and posed no imminent threat to anybody.
At the time of her encounter with Arellano on August 1, Hackett had been pulled over for allegedly committing a routine traffic offense. Arellano reportedly assaulted Hackett after she attempted to pull her arms out of, or away from, the officer’s handcuffs.
“Arellano struck her because she talked back to him—because she questioned him, objected to what he was doing, and declined to be silent while he did it,” the lawsuit alleges. “A closed-fist blow to the face of an unarmed eighteen-year-old girl is not a permissible answer to speech, and it is not a permissible answer to a detainee who pulls her arm away during handcuffing.”
The lawsuit notes that Arellano’s own use-of-force report indicates that he struck Hackett in the face.
“After giving multiple commands for her to roll over without compliance, I delivered one closed-fist strike to the left side of her face in an attempt to gain compliance,” Arellano wrote in the incident report, which was obtained and republished by Jonesboro, Arkansas-based KAIT. “After the strike, she continued resisting by pulling her wrists away and refusing to roll over.”
Benjamin Crump, a well-known civil rights lawyer who is representing Hackett, has since called for a use-of-force investigation. Crump said that Hackett was booked at 12:51am on August 2 in Mississippi County jail on five charges, including the improper display of tags, a restriction on vehicle lamps, failure to wear a seatbelt, purchase or possession of alcohol by a minor, and refusal to submit to arrest.
The lawsuit accuses Arellano of, in effect, putting a “criminal process in motion against Ms. Hackett in order to shield himself from discipline and civil liability, to lend after-the-fact color to his use of force, and to deter Ms. Hackett from complaining about what he had done to her.”
“Arkansas State Police have to explain to the public how that is a reasonable response to a teenager at a traffic stop,” Crump said in a statement. “If you cannot handle a teenage girl without taking her to the ground, cursing at her, and punching her in the face, you should not be wearing a badge.”
NBC News notes that Arellano’s incident report states that he stopped Hackett from driving 71 miles per hour in a 60 mile per hour zone. Hackett told him that her car window was broken and that was she trying to get home as quickly as possible. She was then informed that she was being arrested and told to extend her left hand to be placed in cuffs; confused, Hackett “began turning around and repeatedly asked what she had done.”
In his incident report, Arellano said that he eventually secured both of Hackett’s wrists “but she continued puling her arms away from me.” The trooper then “took her to the ground in an attempt to gain control and complete thar rest.” Once Hackett was on the ground, Arellano ordered her to turn over; when she did not comply, he punched her once in the face.
Sources
Arkansas trooper threw teen down and punched her in the face during traffic stop, lawsuit says
Civil rights lawsuit filed against Arkansas state trooper after traffic stop altercation
Teen punched by Arkansas State Trooper during traffic stop files suit over use of force
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