NEW YORK — A disturbing video of a tussle between police and a New York woman trying to hold onto her 1-year-old baby as she sat on the floor at a Brooklyn food assistance center, WPIX reported.
The Friday arrest of Jazmine Headley, 23, caught on cellphone video, has sparked anger and calls for an investigation, while officials with the New York Police Department are calling the video "troubling," WABC reported.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams called for all charges against Headley to be dropped, the television station reported.
“The department endangered the child, not the mother,” Adams said at a news conference Monday. “Clearly our police department, the most well-trained department in the country, should be able to de-escalate a situation with a baby and the mother. I think the best way of telling her she could not sit on the floor was to get her a chair.”
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Headley remains in custody and faces charges that include acting in a manner injurious to a child and resisting arrest. The child is in the care of a family member, WCBS reported.
According to Headley's mother, Jacqueline Jenkins, her daughter went to the Human Resources Administration building in Brooklyn. Jenkins said Headley was going to ask for day care vouchers for her son so she could work as a cleaner, WABC reported.
The building was crowded and there were no chairs, so Headley sat on the floor with her son, WPIX reported.
Officers were called after Headley allegedly refused to leave, despite requests from HRA peace officers, police said.
Headley "was then informed by police numerous times to leave the location, and she refused," WPIX reported.
Officers forcibly removed Headley’s baby and handcuffed her, according to the video.
The footage is "hard to watch," City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told WPIX.
"I was devastated to see something like that happen to my daughter and grandson, and how this officer yanking on my grandson to get him out of my daughter's arms," Jenkins told WABC.