The video - recorded by a dashboard camera inside a Tallahassee police cruiser and obtained by Tallahassee.com - begins with officers asking Christina West, a mother of two, to perform a field sobriety test. Following the test, she is handcuffed and placed into the back seat of a patrol car.
Several minutes later, one officer explains to another - who appears to be in training - how to formally request that West take a breathalyzer test. That officer then opens the door of the police cruiser where West is being held, asks her to take the test, and she agrees.
He orders her out of the police car and as she exits, she begins asking questions about her husband and her kids.
The officers order her to be quiet and a struggle ensues. About three seconds later, two loud smacks can be heard as her head appears to hit the police vehicle.
'Oh my God,' she groans, as one officer holds her head down on the vehicle while the other keeps her restrained.
'Don't f***ing touch me!' one officer shouts.
The woman, who is 5-feet, 6-inches tall and weighs 130 pounds, then lands face-first on the ground.
As an officer holds her head to the asphalt, she lets out a series of blood-curdling screams.
She cries that her face is in pain tells the officers that she has defecated in her pants.
'I think you broke my right cheek,' she says.
An officer responds: 'You're fine.'
'I'm not fine, you a**hole,' she says. 'I'm not fine. I'm not fine. I'm not fine. That was unnecessary and you know it.'
The officers put her in the back of the police car a couple seconds later and she continues screaming from inside the car until the video ends.
Florida state Attorney Willie Meggs called the footage 'very disturbing.'
'I am extremely upset,' Meggs told the Democrat. 'This is a very disturbing situation to me, and I’m dealing with it.'
West was charged with DUI and several counts of battery on a law-enforcement officer for the incident on Aug. 10. Prior to her arrest, she had reportedly driven her car off the road and into a home.
Her mugshot showed her right eye purple and swollen shut with dark bruising roughly the size of a baseball. Her nose is bloody and she also reportedly had scratches on her arms and legs. She was taken to the hospital immediately after arriving at the jail.
West's attorney, Fred Conrad, told Tallahassee.com that he is seeking compensation for his client, though it may not be in the form of a lawsuit.
'I was shocked to see this,' Conrad said. 'I can say I intend to pursue just compensation for Ms. West. And I can say I intend to do it relentlessly. I intend to make the police department pay for this. This is wrong. And they need to pay for it.'
A probable cause statement written by arresting Officer Chris Ormerod said West was 'placed on the ground' after she resisted being put in handcuffs.
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