Video Shows Violent Arrest of Texas Schoolteacher

White officer tells Breaion King that black people are 'violent' and 'intimidating'
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 22, 2016 2:50 PM CDT

Twenty-six-year-old elementary school teacher Breaion King was pulled over for driving 15mph over the speed limit in Austin, Texas, NBC News reports. Moments later, she was being pulled from her car by officer Bryan Richter and thrown to the ground—twice. According to the Austin American-Statesman, the incident happened in June 2015, but video of it didn't surface until this week. King had gotten out of her car during the stop, but Richter told her to get back in and close the door. Seconds later, King was being violently arrested. In his report, Richter said King had an "uncooperative attitude" and may have been reaching for a weapon. But King tells KVUE she was in fear for her life. “I didn't know what was going to happen," she says. "I literally didn't understand what was happening."

But that wasn't the end of King's ordeal. On the way to jail, another white officer, Patrick Spradlin, told King, who is black, that police are nervous around black people because of their "violent tendencies." Spradlin said black people can be "very intimidating" in their "appearance" and he doesn't blame white people for being afraid of them. Police chief Art Acevedo apologized to King on Thursday. He says he is "highly disturbed and disappointed" by her treatment and called Spradlin's comments racist. An investigation has been launched into the incident, but because it has been more than six months since it happened, Spradlin and Richter can only be punished with a written reprimand. King had been charged with resisting arrest, but those charges were later dropped. (More police brutality stories.)

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