Authorities in Lancaster, California, have released body cam footage after slamming a Black woman to the ground during a robbery investigation outside a grocery store in June, with the woman heard in the footage saying that she can’t breathe. In earlier footage that widely circulated on social media, a witness captured the Black woman filming police as they handcuffed a man suspected of shoplifting. As she stands several feet away, an officer walks over and throws her to the ground. “I can’t breathe,” the woman says in the body-cam footage released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. According to the officers’ attorney, police were responding to a robbery where suspects allegedly threatened store employees. The attorney claimed the woman was not an “innocent bystander” and that the responding officer would not have used forced if she had complied. However, anti-force activists disagreed and planned to protest on Wednesday. “She is of no threat, but [the cop] walks over, grabs her by the neck, slams her to the ground, puts his knee there,” one activist told ABC7.
