Temple student accuses TUPD of police brutality – but roommates dispute her account
She claims officers sexually assaulted her
A Temple student posted on Facebook yesterday claiming she was arrested, sexually assaulted and abused by college police officers.
She posted a status, widely circulated online, saying she suffered police brutality on Thursday night and was arrested without cause.
“After they threw me to the ground, they pinned their legs against the back of my knees,” she said. “I said ‘what am I getting arrested for?’ and he responded with ‘whatever I want to charge you with.'”
It is a troubling account of police violence. But the version of events as told by this Temple student, who we have decided not to name, seems to be at odds with eyewitness reports from neighbors and roommates who have spoken to The Tab.
Video footage also passed to us appears to show police officers calmly dealing with the student before she tries to kick her way out of the car.
After an eyewitness commented on the post and tagged our Facebook page, we decided to investigate what actually happened on Thursday night.
Temple student Lindsay Meyer, who commented on the post above, said the girl’s version of events contradicts what she saw.
Lindsay told us: “All the police did was ask her to leave, after she stole food from my neighbors’ house and was banging on the doors threatening them.
“She wouldn’t leave, despite the officers asking her nicely. They had to escort her out. Over 35 people saw it, and everyone on our block had videos of it. I don’t think that many people would allow police brutality to happen, and the videos definitely don’t lie.”
The student who was arrested has declined to comment, and asked us to maintain her anonymity.
One of her roommates, and one of the people who called the police on Thursday night, also contacted us to give her side of the story.
She explained two girls – a roommate and her friend, who was to be arrested – arrived outside their door late at night.
They heard shouting outside and banging on their door, so they called the police.
“We saw out the window they were lingering outside and that the girl who had been arrested had stolen a bunch of food from my one roommates. Then we didn’t see them outside anymore and there was banging, yelling, and screaming on our door. We were terrified and called the cops. They arrived and our roommate had managed to flee the scene, leaving [the student] for the cops.
“When the cops arrived she was still banging on our door. In her Facebook status, she claimed she was coming for cat litter. There was no cat litter at our apartment – they had come by around 5:30-8pm and gotten that stuff and showed back up around 11pm when all of this broke out. The cops repeatedly and nicely asked her to leave considering she doesn’t live there, we didn’t feel safe, and she was acting drunk and disorderly, causing a disturbance to all five units in our complex.
“She sat on the steps and threw a tantrum to the point of yelling, screaming, kicking and trying to punch the cops, which is when they removed her from the unit as she continued to fight them. She was not groped, she was not thrown to the ground, she never yelled anything about a torn ACL, and she was giving a false name to the cops.
“My roommates and I are the ones who told them she was giving an incorrect name and informed them of her real name. They leaned her up against a car in order to place her in handcuffs because she was resisting arrest and fighting them the entire time. Cops never pinched any arteries to paralyze her. Once being placed in the cop car, she slipped her handcuffs to the front of her body and tried to continue going after the cops and around 20 minutes after they drove off with her she was back trying to get in our unit again and the guys who live above us had to barricade around her until she’d leave for our safety.”
A neighbor recorded the arrest and another roommate, Jessica Mullaney, who was present throughout the ordeal says: “We just want the truth out there since [she] is fabricating things.”
Lindsay added: “Temple police do nothing but protect all of us students. They don’t deserve this drama, and we will make sure the police department had copies of the videos.”
Temple Police refused to comment, but did say a student was arrested for disorderly conduct last night. They have yet to update their daily crime log.