Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego (above) lambasted local police on Saturday after disturbing footage showed officers holding an Arizona family at gunpoint
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego lambasted local police after disturbing video showed officers holding an Arizona family at gunpoint because their four-year-old daughter allegedly shoplifted a $1 doll.
In the footage released Friday, cops can be seen pointing their guns at a pregnant woman holding her one-year-old daughter while telling the children’s 22-year-old father: ‘I’m gonna put a f***ing cap in your f***ing head.’
The officers are said to have been responding to a report about a theft at a Family Dollar store.
The parents, Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper, say they were unaware that their elder daughter had taken the doll out of the store.
Gallego issued a statement on Saturday calling the frightening incident ‘completely inappropriate and clearly unprofessional’.
She has demanded a thorough investigation, which Phoenix police Chief Jeri Williams says is already underway.
Gallego is also expediting the deadline for police-worn cameras to August and has scheduled a community meeting to discuss the matter on Tuesday.
In the footage released Friday, cops can be seen pointing their guns at pregnant Iesha Harper and the one-year-old daughter in her arms while telling the children’s 22-year-old father Dravon Ames: ‘I’m gonna put a f***ing cap in your f***ing head.’ The family are pictured during a press conference about their plans to sue the city for $10million
Chilling footage from May 29 shows cops surrounding Ames and his family with guns drawn. The incident is understood to have been sparked by accusations of the theft of a $1 doll
The family is prepared to filed a $10million lawsuit against the city, accusing the officers of committed civil rights violations during the altercation last month.
Ames and Harper say a Phoenix Police Department officer injured their one-year-old daughter 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.
Harper said she was handcuffed after she gave the child to a bystander and was thrown face-first into a police vehicle.
The officer who pulled on the child’s arm had profanely told Harper that he could have shot her in front of her children.
The notice of claim – a precursor to a lawsuit – filed Wednesday also said Ames was injured when an officer threw him against a vehicle, kicking his leg so hard that the father collapsed and punching him for no reason.
The claim said one of the officers profanely told Ames in front of his children that he was going to shoot him in the face.
‘He kicked me pretty hard,’ Ames said. ‘I’m still limping.’
‘No threat, no resistance,’ said Tom Horne, an attorney representing the family. ‘It was completely unjustified.’
They want $2.5million for each family member.
The former state Attorney General added: ‘We’re talking about a little doll that’s worth maybe $5 and the horrors that came from the overreaction to that.’
Police said no injuries were reported to them and claimed other stolen items were in the car.
‘After this, me and my daughters will never be the same anymore or feel the same for police because it seems like every police is (sic) out for blood or something. We wasn’t (sic) really doing anything,’ Harper said in a press conference, AZFamily.com reported.
Chief Williams said in a Friday video that she ‘gets it’ when addressing the alarmed public response to the footage that police say is from May 27 but the family’s claim dates as May 29. She also said she stands behind the force as they continue to investigate.
‘I, like you, am disturbed by the language and the actions of our officer. I assure you that this incident is not representative of the majority of Phoenix police officers who serve this city,’ she told video viewers.
Civil rights activist Rev. Jarrett Maupin, said: ‘They held guns on these little girls. They held guns on these two parents.
‘They just tortured this… father sitting next to me.’
Civil rights activist Rev Jarrett Maupin (center left next to attorney Tom Horne), said: ‘They held guns on these little girls. They held guns on these two parents. They just tortured this… father sitting next to me’
At the press conference Harper said: ‘After this my daughters will never been the same. It seems police are always out for blood’
In the clip, Harper, 24, stands by in tears, pleading with officers and desperately holding onto her two young children as the horror unfolds.
She cries: ‘I can’t put my hands up, I have a baby. I’m pregnant.’
Two videos taken by onlookers show the full extent of the 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.’
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.’
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
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
In the second clip onlookers call out to ask to take the children away to avoid them from seeing their parents being detained.
Ames told The Phoenix New Times: ‘We’re thinking we’re gonna get shot cause he kept threatening, ‘I’m gonna shoot you in the face’. We were so scared.’
Another woman who was inside the vehicle was dropped off at another location before the family reached the apartment complex. 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.’
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, Horne said.
The family is now said to be seeking $10million in damages from the police who say they are investigating the incident in which neither Ames or Harper are thought to have been arrested
A police report said Ames admitted to shoplifting and threw underwear from the window.
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.
Horne said the parents didn’t know their daughter had taken the doll until they were in the vehicle leaving the store.
Horne said the family was taken aback by officers approaching them at the apartment complex because police didn’t turn on their lights or sirens that would have indicated they should stop.
Their claim states: ‘The police officers committed battery, unlawful imprisonment, false arrest, infliction of emotional distress, and violation of civil rights under the fifth and 14th amendments of the United States Constitution.
‘The first officer grabbed the mother and the baby around both of their necks, and tried to take the baby out of the mother’s hand.’
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’
Arizona senator Martín Quezada has condemned the footage on Twitter, writing: ‘This is everything that’s wrong with #LawEnforcement today. My #LD29 #Maryvale community deserves better than this type of inexcusable and unjustifiable rage and abuse of power from the @phoenixpolice.’
Phoenix police told KNXV-TV the officer who swore is on a ‘non-enforcement assignment.’ The other officer who drew his gun is understood to still be on patrol.
In a statement on their Facebook page police wrote: ‘On June 11, 2019, we were provided video of an officer taking two individuals into custody while investigating a shoplifting incident in the area of 3200 East Roosevelt Street.
‘This occurred after the suspect vehicle was stopped a short distance from the scene of the theft. It involved a man and a woman with two small children.
‘The Phoenix Police Department takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and for this reason, this incident is currently being investigated by the Professional Standards Bureau.’
DailyMail.com has contacted Phoenix police for comment.