Witness says she never saw woman hit CMPD officer during controversial arrest

CHARLOTTE — After the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department came under fire for the way one of its officers made an arrest, a woman who witnessed it is speaking to Channel 9.

Police said the incident began when an officer stopped two people who appeared to be smoking marijuana near a bus stop on Monday. Video circulating online shows several CMPD officers holding a woman, Christina Pierre, down while one officer hits her several times.

>> WATCH the video below:

Video shows officer hitting woman several times; CMPD says she resisted arrest

In a statement Tuesday, police said Pierre was resisting arrest.

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Channel 9 spoke with a witness Thursday who said she saw the arrest. She sat down with Channel 9′s Hannah Goetz because she feels someone needs to stand up for the woman in the video.

“I’m hollering ‘quit kicking her, quit hitting her, stop this, please stop,’” Donna said.

”What is going through your mind now?” Goetz asked.

“How something could have possibly gone that far, that quick -- gotten out of control that fast?” she said.

Donna said she witnessed what the video didn’t capture. She said she was on her lunch break in the Bojangles parking lot when she saw two CMPD officers approach Christina Pierre and her fiancé smoking what police said was marijuana at a bus stop. She said she saw one officer grab the man and the other try to grab Pierre.

“She kept saying, ‘please tell me what I’ve done wrong. Why are you arresting me?’ And he would never answer her,” Donna said.

Donna said it’s when Pierre pulled away from the officer that the first punch was thrown.

“He balled his fist up and he hit her square in the face,” Donna said. “She hit the ground, he sat on top of her and that’s where he stayed as the other officer was sitting on the other gentleman.”

Photos show a bruise on Pierre’s face. Channel 9 doesn’t normally show mug shots of people charged with misdemeanors, but because of how the arrest happened, we thought it was important to do so.

Christina Pierre A mugshot shows bruising on the side of Christina Pierre's face after she was arrested by CMPD officers. The photo on the right, provided by Pierre's attorney, shows the bruising in more detail.

On Wednesday, CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings said he couldn’t definitively say whether an officer had hit Pierre in the face. Late Thursday, CMPD said in a statement that an officer did in fact hit Pierre, but it was after she hit him while resisting arrest -- and before the video was recorded.

“Our ongoing investigation shows Ms. Pierre assaulting an officer by striking him multiple times in the face as she is resisting arrest,” the statement reads. “We can now confirm based on interviews and witness accounts that an officer, in response to being physically assaulted, returned a strike to Ms. Pierre’s face one time. This strike occurred during the initial encounter at the bus stop with the responding officers prior to the struggle on the ground involving several other officers.”

While Jennings confirmed the officer who hit Pierre several times in the viral video has since been reassigned and is not on patrol, on Monday, police said the officer who hit Pierre in the face has not had a change of assignment.

Donna said she did not see Pierre hit the officer, but she did see other officers respond as backup.

“They immediately started beating her as soon as they got there,” she said. “There was nothing else to get out of control. He was sitting on top of her. And when they got there, they swarmed on her and immediately started kneeling and hitting her. "

That’s when Donna said she saw a different officer throwing punches as the viral video begins. She ran to help.

“It was a human being that was being unduly, unnecessarily, beaten,” she said.

“What were you saying out loud when this was all happening?” Goetz asked.

“‘My God, somebody help her.’ I mean, you know, who do you call? The police are there who do you call?” she asked.

Chief Jennings has filed for a court order that would release the body camera video so the public can see it. Goetz got a copy of the court paperwork Thursday, which says there will be a hearing on Nov. 30.

CMPD’s full statement issued on Thursday is below:

“The internal investigation into the recent arrests of Christina Pierre and Anthony Lee on Nov. 13 is active and ongoing. There have been questions regarding the injury that Ms. Pierre sustained to her face and how that injury occurred. We continue to review video, conduct interviews and work closely with Internal Affairs.

“Chief Jennings explained on Wednesday that we were unsure if an officer struck Ms. Pierre in the face during this initial encounter. He also stated that if Ms. Pierre’s facial injury occurred as a result from an officer, it would have likely happened in an earlier struggle prior to Ms. Pierre being on the ground.

“Our ongoing investigation shows Ms. Pierre assaulting an officer by striking him multiple times in the face as she is resisting arrest. We can now confirm based on interviews and witness accounts that an officer, in response to being physically assaulted, returned a strike to Ms. Pierre’s face one time. This strike occurred during the initial encounter at the bus stop with the responding officers prior to the struggle on the ground involving several other officers.

“State law authorizes anyone to use reasonable force to defend themselves. Consistent with state law, CMPD policy authorizes officers to use reasonable force to take a resisting person into custody.

“The Mecklenburg County Courthouse has scheduled the hearing on the release of the recordings for Nov. 30.”

(PREVIOUS: CMPD chief on controversial arrest: ‘Are there things that we can do better? Absolutely’)