Unfortunately, we can sometimes find ourselves in situations that escalate so quickly and to such a violent degree that they almost don’t seem like they’re really happening.
While this can be jarring and frightening no matter how it all started, it’s especially disheartening when the story gets traced back to an action that seems like it couldn’t have possibly prompted a violent reaction.
But while the sad truth is that nothing can erase such events from the minds of those who went through them, there’s at least some comfort to be taken when a dark chapter in the story of our lives reaches a just conclusion.
Fortunately, it seems that this was the sort of conclusion the City of New York was interested in pursuing.
On December 7, 2018, Jazmine Headley was visiting a Brooklyn social services office with her one-year-old son.
As NBC News reported , she was there to ask about her child care benefits and held the child for the duration of her visit.
At one point, she was seen sitting on the floor of the office’s crowded waiting room.
As NBC News reported , this was likely because all other seats were taken.
Nonetheless, social service agents demanded that she leave the premises, to which she replied that she wanted to see a supervisor.
Between that moment and the start of the video, however, the New York police had also arrived on the scene.
And by the time the video starts, the police are shown grappling with Headley while she repeatedly yells, “They’re hurting my son!”
Indeed, her concern is far from unfounded when an officer is shown struggling to rip the child from Headley’s arms.
The struggle continues for the duration of the video as social service agents block bystanders from interfering.
And the crowd was indeed shocked by the behavior of the officers involved.
Amid the struggle and mutters from those gathered, one witness can be heard saying, “Oh my God! Look what they’re doing to her.”
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After police separated Headley from her child, she was charged with resisting arrest, acting in a manner injurious to a child, obstructing governmental administration and criminal trespass.
However, NBC News reported that these charges were dropped and Headley was released.
By August of this year, she had filed a federal lawsuit, which stated she “had been humiliated, assaulted, physically injured, threatened with a taser, brutally separated from her son, handcuffed, arrested, and jailed—all by employees of the City of New York.”
Her lawsuit also outlined the harm done to her son, who was still breastfeeding at the time.
The lawsuit describes him as being, “Brutally wrenched from his mother’s arms, taken by strangers to a police precinct, and released to spend the night without his mother for the first time in his life.”
Days after the incident, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio would make a public apology to Headley.
The city has also reached a settlement with Headley and she is set to receive $625,000 as a result.
As a representative for the mayor’s office, Olivia Lapeyrolerie, wrote in a statement , “While this injustice should have never happened, it forced a reckoning with how we treat our most vulnerable and prompted us to make reforms at HRA Centers across the City. We hope this settlement brings Ms. Headley and her family a degree of closure.”
h/t: NBC News
