AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — A black schoolteacher whose violent arrest for a traffic violation made headlines when police video was released sued the city and the arresting officer this week, and says a second officer made racially charged comments as he drove her to jail.
Breaion King sued Austin and its police Officer Bryan Richter on Tuesday in Federal Court.
Video of her arrest on June 15, 2015 was posted on the Internet a year later by KVUE-TV and the Austin-American Statesman.
King says she was driving home on the interstate after attending classes for a Master's degree in education at Texas State University, in San Marcos. She acknowledges she was going "slightly over the speed limit" when a red truck sped past her.
When she saw a patrol car approaching with blinking lights on, she says, she assumed it was pursuing the red truck.
She pulled into the parking lot of a Wendy's on East Riverside Drive in Austin, got out of her car and was walking toward the Wendy's when she saw the patrol car pull into the parking lot, and Richter told her to return to her vehicle, which she did, she says in the complaint.
King was in the driver's seat with the door open and her legs outside as Richter approached. She asked if he could pull her over even though she had parked her car and had stepped out.
Richter told King she was speeding and asked to see her driver's license. She reached under the seat and the officer told her to put her legs inside the car. King says the incident escalated because Richter did not give her time to comply with his commands.
"Plaintiff did not refuse to place her legs inside the vehicle, and was not given any time to comply with Officer Richter's commands," the complaint states. "Officer Richter then demanded that plaintiff step out of the vehicle and immediately grabbed her to pull her out of her car. Less than ten seconds elapsed between Officer Richter's first request for plaintiff to put her legs in the car and his decision to rip her out of the vehicle forcefully. Less than one minute elapsed between Officer Richter's first words to plaintiff and his decision to use force."
The complaint continues: "As Officer Richter attempted to rip plaintiff out of her vehicle, he slammed plaintiff against her steering wheel, causing the horn to honk in short bursts and a long, sustained burst, despite plaintiff's pleas for Officer Richter to stop touching her and to allow her to get out of the car herself. Officer Richter ignored plaintiff's pleas and literally tore her out of her vehicle with such force that she was lifted off her feet and slammed against a nearby truck and then he threw her to the paved surface."
The dashcam video shows Richter physically removing King from the car and throwing her to the ground in the empty parking spot next to her car.
In his arrest report, Richter wrote that before he dragged King from her car, he saw her reach toward the front passenger side and did not know if she had a weapon.