In a video that has gone viral on the internet, a teen girl can be repeatedly heard saying "I can’t breathe" after she was pinned to the ground by a sheriff’s deputy.
A Facebook video showed the Kaufman County Deputy Martin pinning 18-year-old, Nekia Trigg to the ground and then arresting her mother, Antanique Ray.
The teen girl from Forney, Texas, was reportedly attempting suicide by jumping into oncoming traffic, the Kaufman County Sheriff's Office said in a press release.
On July 27, Deputy Martin responded to the scene after authorities received multiple alerts about the teen. The deputy located the teen crying and walking barefoot down the sidewalk.
In the body-cam video released by the sheriff's office, Deputy Martin is heard asking the girl why she's crying.
The teen tells the deputy that she's OK and continues walking. When the deputy persuades the girl to talk to him she says she doesn't want to talk.
Deputy Martin is then seen grabbing the girl’s arm telling her she needs to stay, to which the teen responds by saying, "OK". "Why are you hurting me?"
The teen can be then heard asking the deputy twice if she can call her mother and let her know that the deputy is going to hurt her.
"I don't want you to hurt me," the girl says.
The deputy continues to hold the teen by her arm and tells her he's going to place her in handcuffs if she continues to resist. The teen then begins screaming and sobbing.
The deputy immediately calls for backup while twisting the girl’s arm behind her back and attempting to place her in handcuffs. The bodycam falls off but continues to record when they both hit the ground.
The teen can be heard repeatedly telling the deputy that he's hurting her. She says "I can't breathe" more than 20 times while the deputy used a top mount maneuver to keep her on the ground.
The sheriff's office said the deputy "executed a control technique" to prevent the teen from running into traffic and injuring herself.
The top mount is a common technique in jiujitsu, that allows the deputy to control the lower body "without impeding breathing" and preventing "injury to both parties," the sheriff's office said.
As the deputy waited for backup, the teen's family "encircled Deputy Martin, screaming and threatening him," the release said.
"You can get up. You don't have to do her like this," the teen’s mother can be heard saying in the video.
The deputy tells the woman that he cannot get up because her daughter had attempted suicide.
A second deputy arrived at the scene and both officers then turned the teen over onto her stomach and placed her in handcuffs. The situation escalates as the deputies begin walking her toward a sheriff's vehicle.
In the video, the mother is seen asking the deputies to loosen the handcuffs and accusing Deputy Martin of failing to record the incident. The deputy is then seen taking the woman to the ground and arresting her, however, the Facebook video doesn't show what led to the woman's arrest.
According to the sheriff's office, the woman pulled on the teen's arm and the deputy warned her not to do that following which, the mother "struck Deputy Martin".
The mother was taken to the county jail on charges of assault on a public servant and interference with public duties, the sheriff's office said. She has since been released.
The woman said at a press conference on Thursday that she was just trying to make sure her daughter was OK.
"I didn't feel that I threatened him in any way or any nature," she said. "I made sure that I was clear in what my reason for being there was," adding that her "only goal" was to calm the situation down.
"So, OK, you're not going to let her up," she said. "Well I'm just going to hold her hand and if I can calm her down, maybe I can calm him down."
"At the end of the day, all I wanted was to be able to go home with my child."
The teen was taken to a mental health facility for evaluation, authorities said.
Deputy Martin has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation into the July 27, incident, the release stated.
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