JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Body camera video shows the violent arrest of a woman outside her daughter’s school in Jacksonville, Florida.<\/p>\n
It all stemmed from a parking dispute. Now, she’s speaking publicly for the first time.<\/p>\n
“Everything that happened, that was just like uncalled for, and it’s not fair,” Erika McGriff said.<\/p>\n
Police say 39-year-old McGriff left her car running in an intersection.<\/p>\n
Body camera video shows an officer confronting her. When McGriff refuses to hand over her license, the situation turns physical.<\/p>\n
Officer: “I need your license!”
McGriff: “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Officer: “You’re making this way more than it needs to be, walk…”
McGriff: “Please don’t grab me. Please don’t grab me; please don’t grab me. I’m not pulling away from you. You got me (expletive) up. You going to punch me”
Officer: “Get on the ground”
McGriff: “Ow! Ow!”
Officer: “Oh you want to fight me?”
McGriff: “Ow!”<\/p>\n
“She violently resisted Officer Holton, and eventually punched him repeatedly and bit him with such force that she left a bite impression on his forearm,” Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said.<\/p>\n
Attorney Ben Crump, now representing McGriff, calls the arrest excessive, and is urging the state attorney to drop the charges, which include “battery” and “resisting with violence”: each punishable by up to five years in prison.<\/p>\n
“Regardless of what you think, how she should comply, when you look at that excessive force, it is not right,” Crump said.<\/p>\n