DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A video of a DeKalb County police officer was released over the weekend. It shows an officer beating a woman with a baton as, he says, she resisted arrest.
The department was aware of the incident, but was not aware of the cellphone video that Channel 2's Sophia Choi has now obtained.
The video shows an officer hitting Katie McCrary with a baton inside a store on Glenwood Road.
On June 4, police received a call from the store of a female soliciting customers inside of the Chevron gas station.
The department said McCrary attempted to push the officer out of the way, and that's when the officer stopped her at the door and asked her to step back.
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Words were exchanged between the officer and McCrary, with McCrary subsequently assaulting the officer, according to police.
"She continued to aggressively resist the officer’s commands, resulting in the deployment of the officer’s baton," PIO Shiera D. Campbell said.
The woman who captured the incident did not want to be identified, fearing police retaliation, but she spoke with Choi by phone.
“I mean the cop, he needs to be punished for it,” she said. “That’s really police brutality.”
Jail records show McCrary has a history of arrests dating back to 2014, mainly for minor offenses, including theft by taking, loitering and disorderly conduct.
Now, she’s facing a charge of obstructing law enforcement officers for this incident, which left her so hurt, the jail sent her to the hospital to get checked out.
“If he could hold her down and beat her, he could have held her down and put the handcuffs on her,” she said.
The woman who took the video inside the gas station says McCrary is homeless, and was just in here that night asking people for money -- something, that witness says McCrary does on a regular basis.
“Yeah, she went crazy when he put her on the ground for no reason and then start beating her,” she said. “Who wouldn’t go crazy, I mean you’re getting beat by an iron stick.”
The officer was cleared following the Internal Affairs investigation. However, now that the department has this new evidence, they have reopened the investigation and will determine whether the incident is consistent with policy and the law.