A Lynn woman will appear before a judge on Thursday as part of an investigation into the use of force following a cell phone video that appeared to s
A Lynn woman will appear before a judge on Thursday as part of an investigation into the use of force following a cell phone video that appeared to show an officer punching the woman repeatedly during a recent arrest after she reportedly refused to cooperate with police.
In Lynn District Court, 39-year-old Jessica Wagle will be charged with assault and battery on a police officer, resisting arrest, and disorderly behavior.
The officer can be seen repeatedly punching the woman in the head in footage that was obtained. The Lynn Police Department released the incident’s full body camera video in answer to questions on the matter. Investigators are now attempting to establish whether that use of force exceeded reasonable limits.
Wagle was instructed to leave
the rooming house on High Street, but she resisted. This is when everything began. In order to assist, police were summoned, and from there, things got worse.
An officer can be seen hitting Wagle four times in the footage, which was shot from inside the lodging facility. Police released eight minutes of body camera video to show the events leading up to the incident, claiming that this is not the full story.
Wagle is seen standing in the room in the body camera footage as police continually request that she leave. Police enter the room after she has been defiant for a while and inform her that she is being arrested for two open warrants. She starts to push back when they attempt to handcuff her. Wagle and the officers then start fighting, which spills into the corridor. Wagle still managed to kick the officers after they used pepper spray and make an effort to bite another. At that point, the cop can be seen punching her.
“Then they threw her,” a witness said. “He literally threw her on the floor when I heard her head had hit the floor.”
Another witness stated, “Brutality of that sort is just unacceptable.”
Dan Linskey, a security analyst for Boston 25 News who has instructed law enforcement on the use of force in 44 states and countries, says that despite how difficult it is to observe this interaction, he does not think it is an instance of police brutality.
“It didn’t look like they were full force as hard as the officer could punch,” Linskey said. “They looked like they were distraction-airy strikes trying to get the individual in custody.”
Preliminary results, according to a statement from Lynn police, indicate that officers followed the department’s use-of-force policy in accordance with the Massachusetts police training standards.
Jared Nicholson, the mayor of Lynn, also issued a statement in which he vowed to maintain complete transparency throughout the investigation.
