A Phoenix officer has been fired after he held a five months pregnant woman and her fiancee at gunpoint in front of their two little girls after their four-year-old daughter is said to have walked out of a store with a $1 doll.
Officer Chris Meyer was informed his contract would be terminated Tuesday following an internal investigation of the incident which saw parents Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper threatened at gunpoint outside a dollar store and caused national outrage.
While the Disciplinary Review Board recommended a six-week suspension, Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams decided more severe action was needed.
‘In this case, a 240-hour suspension is just not sufficient to reverse the adverse effects of his actions on our department,’ she said.
Chilling footage from May 29 shows cops surround Dravon Ames and his family with guns drawn. They tell the 22-year-old: ‘I’m gonna put a f***ing cap in your f***ing head’
Parents Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper are suing the city of Phoenix for $10million
Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams (pictured) said: ‘In this case, a 240-hour suspension is just not sufficient to reverse the adverse effects of his actions on our department’
A second officer who was present will receive a reprimand for using foul language. But video shows he tried to calm the situation, Williams said.
The couple have since filed a $10 million claim against the city. They have a mediation hearing with the city scheduled for December 18.
The video surfaced in June and prompted an immediate backlash. At a community meeting in June, Williams and Democratic Mayor Kate Gallego faced a crowd that demanded the officers be fired.
Parents Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper said a Phoenix Police Department officer injured their one-year-old daughter during the terrifying moment by pulling on one of her arms after the mother refused a command to put the child down.
Harper said the girl couldn’t walk and the pavement was hot.
Two videos taken by onlookers show the full extent of the shocking encounter between the young family and cops.
In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters, telling their parents to ‘put your f***ing hands up’ . One can be heard saying: ‘You’re gonna f***ing get shot.’
Ames frantically tells them: ‘My hands are up. My hands are up.’
Two videos taken by onlookers show the full extent of the shocking encounter. In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters
The footage has been condemned online. In one clip officers can repeatedly be heard swearing in front of the youngsters, telling their parents to ‘put your f***ing hands up’ . One can be heard saying: ‘You’re gonna f***ing get shot’
In a lawsuit they claim police ‘grabbed the mother and the baby around both of their necks, and tried to take the baby out of the mother’s hand’. It adds the infant got ‘dead arm from the incident: ‘Island [the couple’s one-year-old child] has been having nightmares and wetting her bed, which she has not done before this incident.’
As Ames is held against a police car his partner desperately tells police she is unable to lift her arms as she is carrying her one-year-old baby. At least one child can be heard crying as they are taken to safety by witnesses.
The officer screams: ‘If I tell you to do something you f***ing do it.’
Ames replies: ‘Yes, sir.’
In the second clip onlookers call out to ask to take the children away to avoid them from seeing their parents being detained.
It is understood the parents had just pulled into the parking lot to leave their children with a babysitter when their car was surrounded.
Ames said: ‘A police officer, we don’t know who he is, a guy, random guy came up to the door banging on the window with a gun, says he’s going to shoot us in our face, telling us to get out of the car. He hasn’t alerted us that we’re being pulled over anything.
‘If you look at the video pretty good I’m snatched out the car and I fly back and that’s when he grabs me out the car. My hands were up the whole time.’
His pregnant fiancée, Iesha Harper, 24, stands by in tears, pleading with officers and desperately holding onto her two young children as the horror unfolds
Civil Rights Activist Rev Maupin (left) stands with Ames, 22, and Harper, 24, who is holding their one-year-old daughter London. The couple accused police of trying to rip the infant out of her mother’s arms during the viral altercation late last month
Cops stated in a report that Harper was ‘loud’ and ‘verbally abusive’. The report claims an officer pulled his gun because Ames ‘began to reach towards the center of the vehicle between the front seats’.
Police said Harper, the mother of the two children, remained in the vehicle and later explained that she believed one of her daughters had stolen the doll because they didn’t have any money.
Both parents were handcuffed and detained inside police vehicles, but they were eventually released.
At a news conference Tuesday, Ames and Harper said the officer’s dismissal should have happened a lot sooner but were pleased nonetheless.
The family is now said to be seeking $10 million in damages from the police who say they are investigating the incident in which neither Ames or Harper are thought to have been arrested
Dravon Ames, holding microphone, speaks to Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams and Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, as his fiancee, Iesha Harper, right, holds 1-year-old daughter London, at a community meeting, in Phoenix on June 18
‘I think I might be able to get a good night’s rest for once knowing that he’s fired, and it won’t happen to no one else,’ Ames said. ‘I think it’s a step in the right direction for change.’
However, they both believe every officer involved should have been fired.
CCTV footage showed the 4-year-old girl took the doll out of the Family Dollar store without it being paid for, but her parents told police they didn’t realize she had taken the toy.
No one was charged with shoplifting because the property was returned, and store employees didn’t want the case prosecuted, police said.
But Ames was given a traffic citation for driving on a suspended license.
Phoenix police released surveillance footage allegedly showing Ames and Harper’s four-year-old daughter (center) holding the doll she is accused of shoplifting from the Family Dollar. The parents have maintained that they didn’t know the girl had stolen the $1 toy