Add "sitting on the floor of a waiting room while poor" to the list of things Black people cannot do without getting arrested.
Thankfully, the charges have been dropped and after five days at the infamous Rikers Island in New York, Jazmine Headley has been released without bail.
Headley had been waiting in line for four hours with her one-year-old son, trying to obtain a child care voucher at a Brooklyn office of the New York City Human Resources Administration. There were no chairs left, so Headley sat on the floor with her baby.
A security guard insisted she get off the floor, which Headley refused to do—as would most of us. After the exchange of words, the staff called 911 "due to her disorderly conduct towards others, and for obstructing the hallway."
When NYPD showed up, officers ripped her baby from her arms before physically restraining Headley. Onlooker Nyashia Ferguson captured the harrowing altercation on video, and it quickly went viral.
It is nothing short of mortifying.
Headley was arrested, charged and jailed for resisting arrest, acting in a manner injurious to a child and criminal trespass. For sitting on the floor of a waiting room.
Judge Craig Walker of Brooklyn ordered Headley released immediately on Tuesday after calling the incident "horrific" and saying her release was "the right thing to do."
Headley, upon her release, addressed the media and thanked those who had been supportive of her across the country.
"I'm just happy to be free, and I need to see my boy," she told those assembled.
Brooklyn District Attorney shared the judge's sentiments, saying he was "horrified by the violence" of Headley's arrest. After immediately opening an investigation, he concluded that the altercation "should have been handled differently."
On social media, people reacted with widespread anger at the incident, with many calling for punishment against the NYPD officers involved, and bringing attention to the wider issues of police violence and the ways our society punishes people for being poor.
After her ordeal, Headley was finally reunited with her baby Tuesday night.
And a GoFundMe has been set up to help with the childcare costs she was trying to address at the HRA office where she was arrested. As of this writing it had raised over $30,000.
At least there will be a silver lining to this horrific incident.
H/T HuffingtonPost,
@thekalenallen/Threads
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