Footage capturing an aggressive arrest by Austin police of a non-violent jaywalker yesterday near the University of Texas campus is spurring outrage.
Witnesses say a jogger wearing headphones ran past an officer and was quickly subdued for failing to produce identification.
“I was sitting at the Starbucks at 24th and San Antonio,” one witness told The Daily Texan. “Then I hear a cop shout at an innocent girl jogging through West Campus with her headphones on.”
“She repeatedly pleaded with them, saying that she was just exercising and to let her go,” the witness said.
The woman jogger, who looked to weigh no more than 110 pounds, apparently required four burly APD officers, two on bikes, unashamed about being caught on camera as the scene played out in broad daylight in full public view, to place her in the back of a squad car.
In footage of the incident, the woman can be heard saying, “I did nothing wrong,” and “I was crossing the street,” to which the person filming the event acknowledges, “I saw you.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong,” the woman screams as she’s placed in the back of a squad car. “I didn’t fucking do anything wrong. I just crossed the street.”
APD spokespersons told the Texan officers “proactively” patrol the area around the UT campus conducting overall pedestrian and bike safety enforcement, but that there was no specific initiative in place to target jaywalkers.
This is just one more example of how the police state apparatus is encroaching on the private lives of citizens and more activities are becoming regarded as thought crimes, with everyone being guilty until proven innocent.
Image credit: Youtube, Chris Quintero, The Daily Texan
Cops Arrest Jogger for Jaywalking, ‘Failure to identify’
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