LOGANVILLE, Ga. — The Gwinnett County Police Department is addressing the arrest of a woman seen getting tased in a video posted to Twitter that has now been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
The video, shared Thursday afternoon, starts with a woman and an officer arguing on the front porch of a home, although it's not clear what led the officer to the home.
"I'm not going nowhere," the woman can be heard telling the officer, who replies with an inaudible comment.
"It doesn't matter, you're on our property. We did not call you," she tells the officer.
"Do you want to go to jail?" the officer is heard asking.
"I'm not going anywhere," she responds.
The two exchange a few more words before the officer tells the woman to turn around and reaches to arrest her. She moves away from the officer.
A struggle then breaks out between the two, and the officer tells her she will be tased before deploying the device seconds later. The woman falls into shrubs as the officer continues to command her to turn over to arrest her. The video then ends with the officer trying to put her in handcuffs.
Since the video's circulation on Twitter, the Gwinnett County Police Department has acknowledged it has received multiple questions about the arrest.
In their statement, the department gave a summary of the incident and what the police department is doing about it.
According to police, the department received a 911 call on Aug. 18 in reference to property damage on the 1800 block of Summit Creek Way in Loganville. When the officer arrived, police said he was told by the complainant that two people had thrown a bottle at her car. She also said the people threatened to assault her and beat her 9-year-old child.
Police said the incident of the bottle being thrown was captured on surveillance video. That video shows a woman come and retrieve the bottle from the yard before police arrived, police said. The complainant then directed the officer to the house where she believed the suspects were staying.
When the officer went to the house, Gwinnett Police said he immediately recognized one of the women on the front porch from the video surveillance.
Police said he tried to speak with her about the incident but was unable to do so because another woman, identified as Kyndesia Smith, and others at the front of the home began yelling at him. The officer responded by yelling back for everyone to "shut up," so he could talk to the woman seen in the surveillance video, according to a police report, but they did not, and Smith continued to yell.
That's when police said the officer told Smith that if she did not let him do his job and question the woman, he would place her under arrest.
After several warnings, police said the officer finally told Smith that she was under arrest. Police said Smith then tried to avoid his reach to arrest her and refused to be placed in handcuffs. After refusing to be placed in handcuffs, police said she was warned that she would be tased.
After she resisted the officer’s commands, police said she was tased and placed in handcuffs with the help of another responding officer. According to the police report, as Smith was being put into the back of the patrol car, she kicked the officer more than once and continued to be uncooperative.
The officer was finally able to speak to the woman police said was originally seen in the surveillance video, but she wasn't forthcoming with information.
Meanwhile, Smith was taken to the Gwinnett County Jail, where warrants were issued for obstruction and simple battery.
The department said in its statement that it takes all use of force seriously.
"All use of force cases are administratively reviewed through the chain of command. An investigation into this incident is being conducted," the department said.
The officer involved in this situation has been placed in an administrative role pending the outcome of the internal investigation, according to the department.
