CHARLOTTE — Charlotte City Councilmembers will go into closed session on Monday night to review body camera footage of last month’s controversial arrest at a bus stop in southwest Charlotte.
The public will see the video on Tuesday when the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department releases it.
Last week, the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office dismissed all charges against Christina Pierre and Anthony Lee, the couple seen in the viral video. The video shows a CMPD officer punching Perre. Police claimed the couple resisted arrest and was smoking marijuana. Attorneys for the couple deny that.
Mayor Vi Lyles says she will be looking to see if changes need to be made.
“I would like to see that the decisions made by the DA are warranted,” Mayor Vi Lyles said. “That the decisions that we have to then work on around de-escalation that we would be ready for the chief to tell us what he saw in the video and what he would change.”
Previous coverage:
- Video shows officer hitting woman several times; CMPD says she resisted arrest
- CMPD chief on controversial arrest: ‘Are there things that we can do better? Absolutely’
- Witness says she never saw woman hit CMPD officer during controversial arrest
- Woman hit by CMPD officer on video speaks: ‘Never been through anything like this’
- All charges dismissed against Charlotte couple seen in viral arrest video
- Judge approves CMPD to release all video of controversial arrest
Councilman Tariq Bokhari says he’s talked to officers who have already seen the video. He thinks the community will have a much more rounded story after they see the footage.
“My big role will be to sanity check it and make sure am I seeing those things that were not in the footage posted on social media that led up to that, that tell the entire story of what happened,” he said.
Councilmember Tiawana Brown now represents District 3, the area where the arrest happened. She says she doesn’t like what she has seen so far.
“I would just say that I was not pleased with what I saw on camera,” she said. “When you see someone punching on a lady, that’s unacceptable. I am a survivor of domestic violence, so of course that is going to make me cringe when I see something like that.”
A judge told CMPD to show the video to city council members before releasing it to the public. The court order says it will be released publicly on Tuesday.
VIDEO: All charges dismissed against Charlotte couple seen in viral arrest video
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