The full, nearly 30-minute version of the viral video showing an unidentified white Fort Worth, Texas, police officer antagonizing and then arresting a black mother and her two daughters was posted on YouTube on Friday. It does not reveal any new information about the arrests, but it contains graphic and explicit language, so viewer discretion is advised.
As previously reported on The Root, Jacqueline Craig, a 46-year-old black woman, called police after her son reported being choked by a white neighbor. The call was answered by a white, as yet unidentified police officer, and the exchange was captured on video.
After the police officer has what appears to be a quiet exchange with the reported attacker, he strolls over to Craig and asks condescendingly, “What’s going on with you?”
Craig tells him that the neighbor choked her son for allegedly throwing a piece of paper on the ground and not picking it up when the neighbor asked him to. In response to Craig’s distress, the police officer asks in an accusing tone, “Why don’t you teach your son not to litter?”
“He can’t prove to me that my son did or didn’t, but it doesn’t matter,” Craig says. “That doesn’t give him the right to put his hands on him.”
To which the officer responds, “Why not?”
Craig and her 19-year-old daughter were arrested by the officer, who has since been put on restricted duty pending an investigation. Her 15-year-old daughter was detained.
In the longer video, Craig is seen confronting the neighbor who allegedly choked her son. The video then shows Craig calling 911 for police assistance, telling the dispatcher that the neighbor had grabbed her son by the neck. At one point, another man comes up and tells the neighbor to keep his hands off Craig’s son.
Shortly thereafter, the officer arrives on the scene.
The original video, which was six minutes long, went viral after it was posted Dec. 21. It contained only the portion that includes the confrontation with the officer. YouTube user Black Power Prince posted the full version online, which includes the 11 minutes before the officer arrived and 13 minutes after Craig and her two daughters were arrested.
The original video sparked outrage in Fort Worth, and on Thursday evening, protesters gathered downtown in a demonstration organized by the Next Generation Action Network. Another NGAN protest is scheduled for Tuesday evening.
Fort Worth officials addressed the video at a Friday news conference, during which the Fort Worth chief of police said that the officer involved in the incident was “rude” but not racist.
The officer’s name has still not been released.