An investigation is underway after a sheriff’s deputy was filmed throwing a woman to the ground during a robbery investigation at a Southern California grocery store.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were taking an unidentified man into custody outside the Lancaster grocery store on June 24 when the woman was abruptly forced to the ground while filming the scene on her phone, body camera footage released by the sheriff’s department shows.
The sheriff’s department said the deputies were attempting to detain individuals matching descriptions provided by store security personnel in a 911 call.
The footage shows deputies first handcuffing the man, who claims to not understand why he was being detained, as he sits outside the store holding a cake.
The man repeatedly asks why he’s being taken into custody, but deputies don’t explain.
A few steps away, a woman identified by a deputy as the man’s wife appears to be taking video of the confrontation on her phone. A recording taken by another person and obtained by ABC-7 shows a deputy grab her by the neck and swing her to the ground against her protests.
“Stop or you’re going to get punched in the face,” the deputy tells her after forcing her to the pavement. He then sprays her in the face with a small canister, the body camera video shows.
“She’s got cancer,” the man identified as her husband repeatedly tells the deputies as they wrestle her into handcuffs.
When the woman asks why they are “manhandling” her, one deputy responds: “Because you’re being detained.”
Both the woman and a man were cited and released, CNN reported, though it’s not clear on what charges.
The video footage will be reviewed “to determine if the force used was reasonable, necessary, appropriate, and proportional to the level of actions described,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement. “We take the use of force very seriously and are determined to establish the facts of the incident.”
Both deputies involved in the clash have since been reassigned from field duty pending administrative review, the sheriff’s department said.