At 12:30 p.m. on June 15, 2015, Austin Police Officer Bryan Richter pulled over 26-year-old Breaion King for driving 15 mph over the speed limit. According to Richter's dash cam video, the officer immediately ordered King to step back inside her car before informing the teacher that she had been stopped for speeding.
Complying with his orders, King sat inside her car and gave Richter her driver's license as commanded. When ordered to put her feet inside so Richter could close her door, King asked, "Could you please hurry up?"
Instantly losing his temper, Richter demanded, "Okay, ma'am, stand up for me. Okay?"
"Okay," King responded.
Despite the fact that King had been complying with his commands and had agreed to exit her vehicle, Richter suddenly grabbed her for no apparent reason before she could step out of her car.
"Why are you touching me?" King asked in absolute terror. "Oh my God!"
"Stop resisting!" Richter immediately shouted. "Get out of the car!"
"I'm getting out," King replied. "Let me get out."
Gripping King's neck and arm, Richter abruptly pulled her out of the car and whipped her around before violently slamming her against the ground.
"Put your hands behind your back!" Richter ordered.
"Oh my God!" King pleaded. "Are you serious?"
"I'm about to taze you," Richter threatened as King stood up and placed her hands behind her back.
"Are you kidding me?" King asked as Richter swept her legs and threw her to the ground again for no apparent reason.
"Put your hands behind your back," Richter repeated while pressing his full weight down on her back.
"Would you let me get down, please?" King pleaded.
After cuffing the 112-pound woman, Richter and a fellow officer led King to the front of his patrol car by lifting her arms behind her back in a torture position. Before she was placed inside the back of the car, King genuinely asked, "Why are my arms so high up?"
Later in the video, Richter recounted the incident to a superior while blatantly making false statements.
"Once we got out of the car, she took a swing at me," Richter lied. "She missed. And then she swings - and I saw it coming - so I just threw her down. We were on the ground. I didn't want to hit her. So we just kinda wrestled."Falsely stating that King had slipped out of her restraints and needed to be thrown against the pavement again, Richter gave a version of events that failed to corroborate with his own dash cam video. While sitting in the backseat, restrained in handcuffs, King was later subjected to a second officer's racist comments as he transported her to jail.
"Why are so many people afraid of black people?" Officer Patrick Spradlin asked King in the second video.
"That's what I want to figure out because I'm not a bad black person," King responded.
"I can give you a really good idea why it might be that way," Spradlin continued.
"Why?" King asked.
"Violent tendencies," Spradlin answered.
Ironically, King was nonviolent when Richter suddenly pulled her out of the car without giving her any time to comply with his orders. Although she had initially been charged with resisting arrest, King's case was dismissed earlier this year and she ended up paying $165 for driving 50 mph in a 35 mph zone.
After requesting a federal investigation into the incident from the Justice Department, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo publicly apologized to King and her family at a press conference on Thursday.
"I'm sorry that on the day you were stopped for going 15 miles an hour, you were approached and treated in a manner that is not consistent with this police chief and department," Chief Acevedo stated. "We're in 2016 and this will not be tolerated."
Andrew Emett is a Los Angeles-based reporter exposing political and corporate corruption.
. . . happens every. damned. day."