Video Of Corpus Christi Police Brutality Goes Viral

A Corpus Christi, Texas, police officer was officially disciplined by his department after video of an alleged police brutality incident from August surfaced and went viral this week, KRIS (Corpus Christi) is reporting.

Lanessa Espinosa, the victim of the police brutality incident, recorded the video on August 16 after a fight broke out at the parking lot at a Whataburger in Flour Bluff (a neighborhood in Corpus Christi). Corpus Christi officer Jerry Lockhart was called to the scene. According to the Blaze, Lockhart asked everyone present for their identification, including Espinosa. She refused.

“You’re involved in an investigation. You want to interfere with an investigation, you’re going to jail for interfering with a police officer in performance of his investigation. Do you understand that?”

It was at this point that an off-duty Corpus Christi officer put Espinosa in a chokehold, which can be seen clearly in a screengrab from the viral video. Espinosa and the other parties involved in the fight were all taken to jail, but all were ultimately released without charges.

While she was in custody in the police car, Ms. Espinosa was asked to delete the video footage she’d recorded. The conversation was recorded on the car’s dashcam, and that footage is posted on KERO (Bakersfield) TV’s website.

“I would like to see the gentleman erase that film.”

Espinosa said she pretended to delete the video in order to satisfy the cops.

“I was told I was free to go and to delete the video. I pretended to delete the videos so I would be released.”

At issue in the video are two separate problems, according to reports.

First problem: was Ms. Espinosa legally required to produce I.D. when the police officer asked for it?

Former District Attorney Carlos Valdez tells KZTV (Corpus Christi) that in Texas, a person is only required to identify their self if they have been arrested, so Ms. Espinosa’s arrest for refusing to identify herself was not legal.

“So under this particular offense that we’re talking about, failure to identify, I don’t think there’s a violation on video.”

Second problem: was Officer Lockhart within his legal authority to ask Ms. Espinosa to delete the video?

Chief Floyd Simpson tells KERO that his officer should not have asked Espinosa to delete the video, and for that reason the officer is being disciplined.

“Our officer performed the way I wanted him to perform except ‘I’m going to arrest you if you don’t give me the ID’… and the piece about deleting the video.”

As for why she waited until now to post the video of the police brutality incident that happened in August, Ms. Espinosa tells the Blaze that she wanted to wait for things to “cool off.”

This case bears strong similarities to a police brutality incident in Denver. According to this Inquisitr report, the FBI is investigating after a Denver police officer punched an unarmed man, tripped the man’s pregnant girlfriend, then attempted to delete video of the incident recorded by a bystander.

As of this post, it is not clear what discipline the Coprus Christi, Texas police officer will face for the police brutality incident caught on video.

[Image courtesy of the Blaze]