After her questionable death on July 22nd, 2012, Alesia Thomas’ family announced plans to file a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), demanding the release of a dash-cam video taken the night she was arrested.
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Benjamin Crump, the lawyer in the Trayvon Martin case as well, is representing the Thomas family. He says the video will shed light on how the 35-year-old mother of two died while in police custody:
“It’s really straightforward and clear,” Benjamin Crump, a Thomas family lawyer, who also represents the family of slain Miami teenager Trayvon Martin, told MSNBC.com. “How long before they release this video? What is it they don’t want us to see? That’s the simple crux of the matter here. If this was your family and you lost a loved one in police custody and they tell you they have a video but they don’t want to show it to you, that’s insult to injury.”
Steven B. Effres, another Thomas family lawyer, said he has also filed a notice of claim on behalf of the family in a wrongful death lawsuit they plan to file against the city.
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An investigation on the five police officers was launched this summer, after authorities deemed the arrest violent. According to MSNBC, the police officers hog-tied Thomas in a position that was said to asphyxiate her, and kicked her in the genitals:
Earlier public statements from the police described the confrontation between Thomas and a least five police officers in violent and dramatic terms. Just hours before Thomas’s encounter with police, she reportedly dropped off her two children, 12 and 3, at a South Los Angeles police station, saying later that she was a drug addict and struggling to support her family. Officers later tracked down the distraught mother at her home, where police arrested her on Child Endangerment charges.
As officers attempted to take Thomas into custody, they said she began “violently” resisting arrest. One officer then took her down with a “leg sweep.” At some point during the struggle, according to eye-witness reports, officers yelled out profanities and disparaging comments about the woman’s weight.
One female officer then threatened to kick the woman in the genitals if she didn’t calm down and comply, a threat the officer then carried out. Thomas continued to resist, police say, so officers placed her in a “hobble restraint device,” essentially hog-tying her by securing her ankles to her handcuffed hands.
Within minutes Thomas was dead in the backseat of a police cruiser.
The LAPD Chief, Charlie Beck, is quoted in a statement saying that he takes all police custody deaths seriously and is confident that the department will get the truth, no matter where it leads them.
With the LAPD’s historic reputation of violence against its citizens, this could be a down hill slope in their progression, or lack of, over the years.
SOURCE: MSNBC
