North Carolina police officer fired after video captures him repeatedly punching woman during arrest

By Taylor Galgano, Zoe Sottile, CNN

A police officer in Shelby, North Carolina, was fired Saturday after a viral video captured on a home security camera showed him wrestling a Black woman to the ground and repeatedly punching her.

As officers tried to handcuff her after the incident, the woman asked for mental health care, said she was off her medication, and repeatedly asked officers to call her father.

The video sparked protests in Shelby – a small city near North Carolina’s southern border – and calls for the officer’s dismissal. It comes after years of scrutiny and protests over police use of force in the US, particularly against African Americans.

Her father identified the woman in the video as his 34-year-old daughter.

“I was so upset … Why is this man doing this to my daughter? What reason? And she’s sick,” Gregory Moore told CNN, referencing her mental health issues.

The officer, who was not named by the department, was fired following an administrative investigation, according to Shelby Police Chief Brad Fraser. An arrest warrant for the woman shows an officer named Karson Hyder was trying to arrest her. CNN is attempting to reach Hyder for comment.

“As a lifelong resident of this community, I care deeply about the residents we serve and the reputation of this department,” Fraser said in a news conference Saturday. “While this incident does not reflect the values of the Shelby Police Department, it does reinforce the importance of holding ourselves to the highest standards of conduct.”

CNN has reached out to the Shelby Police Department and police unions in the state for comment on the officer’s firing.

It is unclear what happened in the moments before the video began. The camera was motion-activated and only started recording when it detected the officer and the woman, according to the homeowner, whom CNN agreed not to name due to their concern for privacy after the story went viral.

The video starts with the officer and the woman standing, their hands touching. The officer then wrestles the woman to the ground. She is heard saying, “I don’t have a warrant” and asks, “What are you doing?” The officer then punches her multiple times, apparently in the face and upper body.

A second officer then steps in to pull them apart as the first officer continues punching her. The second officer says, “Let go,” repeating, “I got her.”

A third officer then arrives and the officers try to handcuff the woman. She asks if she could receive mental health care and asks the officers multiple times to call her father.

Michael Alcazar, a retired New York City Police Department detective and current adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who reviewed video of the incident, told CNN the officer in the video “employed force far beyond what the situation required.”

He noted the officer continued punching the woman even after a second officer arrived, which “appears to violate basic use-of-force principles,” he said.

The incident “will forever impact the life” of the woman and her family, her attorney Ronald Haynes Jr. told CNN. “This has devastated our community and furthered the distrust between the African American community and the police.”

Investigators ask for patience after video sparks protests

The police department provided the findings of the investigation to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation for an independent review of any criminal violations, Fraser said.

“We understand the community has questions and concerns, and we take that very seriously,” Chip Hawley, director of the bureau, said in a statement Saturday. “We ask the public to be patient as we conduct our work.”

The woman in the video was charged with breaking and entering, resisting a public officer, and assault on a government official or employee, according to a warrant for her arrest issued Friday.

The warrant alleges the woman unlawfully entered a building and then resisted arrest by “running on foot.” The building is located down the street from where the camera captured the video.

The warrant alleges the woman then assaulted the officer making the arrest by “grabbing and ripping (his) uniform.”

She was initially held on a $10,000 bond, but court records show she was later released on an unsecured bond. The charges against the woman haven’t been dropped, her attorney said.

The homeowner whose camera captured video of the interaction said they heard a commotion but assumed it was just children playing outside. After repeated notifications from their security camera, they checked the footage, but by then the incident was over. After watching it back, they were shocked and posted the video on social media.

As the video drew more attention, protesters gathered at the Shelby Police Department Friday to denounce the officer’s actions and call on the department to take action before he was fired, CNN affiliate WBTV reported.

Demonstrators waved signs with messages like “Protect our women” and “Chief Fraser, do your job,” according to video captured by CNN affiliate WSOC. “No justice, no peace, let’s prosecute the police,” protesters chanted.

Michael Moore, the woman’s uncle, said Saturday that he was glad the officer was fired, according to WSOC.

But he hopes there’s more accountability: “Of course we’re looking for some other things to happen, that number one, he be charged.”

North Carolina, like the rest of the country, saw intense protests over racial justice and police abuse of power in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis in 2020. In the years since, there have been more protests and public scrutiny of police in the Tar Heel State, including following the police killings of Darryl Tyree Williams and Andrew Brown Jr.

Shelby City Manager Justin Merritt said in a Saturday news conference, “While yesterday’s incident was disturbing and is still raw and difficult to understand, today marks the beginning of a path forward to repair the damage that has been done.”

“This is a path that we must walk together, hand in hand, unified with the common goal of understanding, supporting each other and strengthening the fabric of a community we all hold so dear.”

‘She’s going to be scarred the rest of her life’

Moore said his daughter has a broken nose, black eyes, and a cut lip and needs to be tested for a possible concussion.

He’s not sure why the officer punched her so many times but said their family is going to find out.

After she was released from jail, the woman’s family distributed photos of her face, seemingly bloodied.

Moore said his daughter suffers from mental health and substance abuse issues but said his daughter did not swing back at the officer.

He explained she frequently walks around the neighborhood.

“Her mind just won’t let her sit down,” Moore said. “She walks around like she has no place to go. And the man must have thought she really didn’t have a family, that nobody loves her.”

His daughter is in a safe place and resting now, her father said, adding she said she was sore and does not want to talk about what happened.

“She’s going to be scarred the rest of her life,” he said. “When she sees a police officer, that’s what she’s going to think about … so she ain’t going to be able to trust no man, no police officer, nothing anymore.”

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