Body camera footage was released Saturday from an incident on July 23, exposing Texas cops for wrongfully identifying a Black family’s vehicle as stolen, per NBC News. Before the officers realized their mistake, the entire family was ordered at gunpoint to exit the car on the side of the highway.
In a TikTok, a woman named DemiJanale said she, her husband, their 12-year-old son and 13-year-old nephew were headed to a basketball game when they were followed from their hotel and pulled over by several Frisco police officers. The department stated the black Dodge Charger was marked by the officers because of the recent car thefts and burglaries involving that specific type of vehicle. For this reason, the police conducted a high-risk traffic stop, calling backup to close down southbound lanes and ordering the family out of the car at gunpoint.
Read more from The Dallas Morning News:
Officers initially told the woman, who was in the driver’s seat, to exit the vehicle by opening the car door from the outside. After the woman told officers that her car was turned off and that the door was locked from the outside, an officer gave permission for her to open her door from the inside, she can be heard saying in the video.
Afterward, they put the woman’s hands behind her back and patted her down. One of the officers started asking about her license plate and told her that their system had marked it as “stolen,” the woman says. The woman says she told the officer that the license plate belonged to her. She also informed the officer that she had a firearm inside the locked glove compartment in her car. A short time later, she saw her son in the middle of the highway.
“I look up and I see what they’re doing with my son. They’re doing the same thing they did to me to him, but they actually cuff him and put him in the car,” she says. The woman says she also heard officers telling her husband and nephew, who were still inside the car, to “be smart,” because they “know there’s a gun.”
Moments later the officers noticed there was something wrong. When one officer ran the vehicle’s license plate into their police-thingymabobber, they realized the tag was run out of Arizona instead of Arkansas, which made them believe the joint was stolen.
“This is all my fault. I apologize for this. I know it was very traumatic for you and your nephew and your son,” said an officer to the woman. On the other side of the car, another officer apologized to one of the boys in the back seat.
The Frisco Police Department launched an incident review the same day to figure out what happened. Right now, we don’t know if anyone received disciplinary action in relation to the incident, but Chief David Shilson said he spoke to the family and apologized on behalf of the department.
“We made a mistake,” said Shilson in a statement. “Our department will not hide from its mistakes. Instead, we will learn from them.”