A group of young women in Nacogdoches, Texas, say they’re on a mission to clear their friend’s name after they say an off-duty police officer doing security at an apartment complex used excessive force in arresting her and another one of their group.
Tanjuniqua Brown and DreAuna Williams tell KTRE that they and a group of about eight other women were simply hanging out Wednesday night in a parking lot at The Overlook of Nacogdoches apartment complex when they say a man approached them.
“He walked up to us in regular clothes and said, ‘Who lives here?’ He was hostile from the beginning,” Brown said.
The man, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, turned out to be an off-duty Nacogdoches police officer who lives in the complex and was doing security for the development as a courtesy, Police Sgt. Brett Ayers told the news station.
In an altercation that followed and was captured in dashcam footage released Thursday by the NPD, the off-duty officer appears to take down to the ground at least one woman, identified by police as Lindsey Ogbonna, 19, of Nacogdoches. Ogbonna was arrested on resisting arrest charges.
“He tackled her,” Brown said of the officer, who was not named by police. “He used unnecessary force and then turned on another girl. We just want justice for those two girls.”
That second young woman, Kayla Jackson, was charged with criminal trespass. She told the news station: “The officer was belligerent. He was violent. He was disrespectful. He dehumanized my friend.”
Nacogdoches police say the two women resisted arrest and that the officer suffered minor injuries during the scuffle. However, the department has launched a use-of-force investigation regarding the incident.