White Louisiana sheriff's deputy is filmed slamming 4'8 black woman to ground so hard her braids broke off after she 'refused to talk to him'
A 4'8 black woman who lost her eye in a car accident was filmed being flung to the ground by a white sheriff's deputy with such force that her braids broke off.
Shantel Arnold, 34, was attacked by the deputy from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office on September 20 after she was previously ambushed by three neighborhood boys, locals say.
Arnold, standing at a height of 4'8 and weighing 100 pounds, was seen as an easy target for the boys due to her small, skinny frame and her missing eye from a prior car accident, it is claimed.
The deputy then went after Arnold, who had used a stick to fend the boys off as her stepfather Lionel Gray, 71, shooed them off, according to eyewitnesses.
He is said to have begun attacking Arnold after she refused to talk to him about what had happened, because she just wanted to get home.
A 14 second video showed the deputy, who hasn't been named, hurling Arnold to the ground, prompting outrage among family members and racial justice groups who say she was the victim.
'I'm on my way home. I ain't make it all the way to the block, the police come out of nowhere, swarming, getting me like, 'Come here.' I'm like, 'What's going on? I just got beat up by two children, what ya'll doing?', Arnold told NOLA.com.
Video footage captured the moment a black woman was seen being pulled by her braids and slammed to the ground by a white Jefferson Parish deputy officer
Shantel Arnold, 34, was considered an easy target for a trio of neighborhood boys who had previously attacked her. Arnold stands at a height of 4'8 and weights only 100 pounds as well as only having one eye.
The footage of the attack, recorded by a witness, captured the officer attempting to pick a struggling Arnold up off the street.
The officer then aggressively grabs Arnold by her braids and slams her to the ground a couple of times.
He then appears to kneel on her back as the video ends.
During the restraint, the cop is said to have grabbed Arnold by her braids to hard that several of them were torn out.
Arnold was then taken to the hospital, and did not face any criminal charges over the alteraction.
But she sustained multiple injuries including bruises and scratches across her body, a busted lip, and recurring headaches.
Her sister Mercedes, 32, had arrived at the scene where the deputy who attacked Arnold was still present.
He then tried to convince Mercedes to call the coroner and have her sister be committed to a mental health hospital, with the family claiming that was just a ruse by the deputy to justify his behavior.
'He was just trying to cover up what he did by saying my sister is crazy,' Mercedes said after she refused the officer's request.
The deputy officer remained unprovoked by Arnold after he attempted to forcibly pick her up by her arms for fending off the boys with a stick
The deputy officer then appeared to put his knee on Arnold's back
The officer who attacked Arnold has not been named but is currently under investigation.
The unnamed officer has even showed up to the Arnold's home since the attack, according to family members, who believe it may be a form of intimidation.
Witnesses to the incident, including Gray, have said that Arnold did not even provoke the officer in the attack.
'She didn’t have a chance to pull away because, you know, this guy was strong,' Gray said.
'He grabbed her arm, and some kind of move he made, and she went down to the ground.
'So I was walking up to him and he told me, ‘If you come any closer I’m going to kick everybody’s a** out here.’
So, I said ... ‘you don’t have to use that type of force on that little woman right there, she’s a midget.’
Others who have responded to the video have called the attack 'shocking' and 'outrageous', as well as questioning the integrity of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
'Yet another testament to the shocking frequency that JPSO targets and brutalizes innocent, unarmed members of the Black community,' Alanah Odoms, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana said.
Sam Walker, emeritus professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, questioned the department's training in regards to control and de-escalation tactics
'There are essentially two answers here. One is they do, and he ignored his training,” Walker said.
'Or answer number two is no, they don't, which is to say their training program is completely unacceptable. So, it's either him or the organization.'
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office has long been accused of using forceful tactics by the area's black residents
The black residents of Jefferson Parish have long complained of JPSO targeting them and the abusive deputies from the department.
The department has allegedly used brutal force and made false arrests, according to those from the community.
An investigation on these allegations saw that more than 70% of black individuals were targeted and shot at in the past eight years, according to a story by ProPublica and WWNO/WRKF. That comes despite black people making up just 35 per cent of the parish's population.
The investigation also saw that 12 of the 16 people who died after being shot at or restrained by deputies were black.
DailyMail.com reached out to Shantel Arnold for comment.
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