Texas Cop Knocks Woman Unconscious in Front of 6-Year-Old Daughter

Woman was reportedly intoxicated and resisting.

A cop in Round Rock, Texas, was caught on video slamming Viviana Keith, a DUI suspect, to the ground and knocking her unconscious in front of her 6-year-old daughter. Watch the video, via USA Today, below:

The police chief is backing his officer's action in the video with a suspect police say was described as combative, argumentative, and intoxicated by multiple 911 callers. KVUE reports:

[Round Rock Police Chief Allen] Banks has seen the dash cam video but said he has not talked with Johnson. KVUE showed him the video and asked, intoxicated or not, is this use of force necessary?

"The officer was very professional, was talking to her calm, he wasn't excited, he wasn't angry," said Banks. "It's unfortunate, the fact that this lady did what appears to hit her head and was knocked unconscious, but I'll tell you, the officer did what he was supposed to do in a situation like that."

Keith was arrested and charged with DWI with a child younger than 15 and interfering with pubic duties. As of Wednesday evening, she was still in the Williamson County Jail.

And so the world turns.

h/t Stanton Smith

Comments

[Steve G]

Stop, just stop Reason. My nuts can only take so much today...

[Private FUQ]

It's nut punch Thursday. And I have a special on stainless steel nut protectors.

[Vulgar Madman]

Nothing in titanium?

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[Episiarch]

the fact that this lady did what appears to hit her head and was knocked unconscious

I never get tired of the passive voice. Oh wait yes I fucking do.

[DK]

Clearly, the pavement is at fault here. But, the question is, did the officer read it its rights?

[Almanian!]

The passive voice was used. Tiresome feelings were felt.

[Drake]

I shocked she's alive and not in the hospital with severe post-concussion symptoms.

[Scarecrow Repair]

That would require the cops to admit she got hurt.

Ever wonder why so many cops beat someone up and do nothing but call their union reps first? To call for an ambulance would be an admission that they hurt someone, and they don't have time to doctor video and align their stories.

[ATXChappy]

That, and dead men tell no tales.

[Steve G]

this lady did what appears to hit her head

Yeah, it was her fault for not getting out of the way of the freakin pavement.
That prick just saw an opportunity to go full roid on a drunk civilian. Good Shoot Bodyslam!

[Episiarch]

Cops love any excuse where they get to beat the shit out of someone in some "justifiable" way. I knew someone years ago whose father was epileptic. He had a seizure while driving one time while almost home and actually drove into the side of someone's house. Luckily no one was hurt, but when the cops got there they just assumed he was drunk and were dragging him out of the car and were beginning to beat the shit out of him--because he's drunk, and that's the excuse, see--and luckily were only stopped by a neighbor running out screaming "he's epileptic, he had a seizure" (the neighbor knew he wasn't drunk because he didn't drink because he couldn't with his seizure medication).

[Suthenboy]

I having a hard time finding a good guy here. That woman is an idiot. A freakin' idiot. This ended exactly as I would have predicted. She left the house drunk and with a young child, drove to a public place and made a spectacle of herself......sheesh.

Do not interpret this as meaning I condone what the cop did. Treating non-compliance the same as violent assault is unjustifiable. Now she is going to be an idiot with a boatload of taxpayer money.

[Steve G]

Who needs a good guy. The cop is supposed to be the good guy, but apparently he's physically incapable of restraining an impaired woman without completely over-the-top, slamming her to the ground. He could have just as easily pushed her into the hood of the car to cuff her. She is a tool, but his actions, either separated from hers or not, are simply unsat.

[Suthenboy]

Like I said, unjustifiable.

[Private FUQ]

There will be at least one post in this thread before midnight justifying his actions. Your right, this woman is an absolute moron and I can only hope she has an ex husband who will now file for custody of the child but the endless parade of cops killing and beating people is getting tiresome. And I suspect it's gonna lead to some nut deciding it's time to start hunting them in retaliation. And our freedoms will be eroded even more.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

"And I suspect it's gonna lead to some nut deciding it's time to start hunting them in retaliation."

Unlikely.

"And our freedoms will be eroded even more."

Inevitable.

[Harvard]

" And I suspect it's gonna lead to some nut deciding it's time to start hunting them in retaliation. And our freedoms will be eroded even more"

If sucker punched by a punk while walking down the street, I have recourse against the punk, assuming I can identify him and he's arrested. If sucker punched by a cop I have no recourse, save emptying the pockets of taxpayers to some degree. The cop has governmental immunity the punk doesn't enjoy. What deters the next punk is the consequences. What promotes the cop is his immunity. How is it that when I run a .40 cal into the cop's kneecap as he takes out the garbage any infringement on your fucking freedom? And am I really a nut when I really mentally imbalanced when I refuse to bend the knee to a brownshirt?

[Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns]

There's no good guy, but it's amazing that a cop thought this degree of force was legitimate. She was an intoxicated woman half his weight and he already had her hands behind her back, so the decision to hurl her to the ground like that was just sadistic.

[Suthenboy]

"...an intoxicated woman half his weight and he already had her hands behind her back,"

You and I see that as less of a reason to become violent. The kinds of people we are dealing with here, not so much.

http://www.theatlantic.com/nat.....ds/380329/

[Sam Haysom]

In reality she's going to be an idiot without a kid and hence without a child support payment. The defense honestly has to only get up and say this lady was drunk with her kid in the car and rest their case. Most non-libertarians have the visceral hatred for that kind of parenting trash that libertarians have for cops. And there's a lot more non-libertarians out there. The treatment of this incident reveals a huge bubble effect cropping up among libertarians. The cop acted overly aggressively, but this is a worse case than Michael Brown to try and rabble rouse about.

[Private FUQ]

Please point to the libertarians that are justifying this woman's actions. If fact several have already stated they don't particularly care for her. Libertarians just don't believe that people should be beaten and/or killed because they don't obey fast enough. There was no need to throw this woman to the pavement. If a cop can't handle a 100 lb drunk woman maybe he should put his big boy pants on or get another job.

[Sam Haysom]

Please point to where I said they justified them. I just pointed out that for the vast majority of people the outrage is going to be directed at the woman. This isn't like the case where the deadbeat dad got shot in the back after fleeing. In that case the outrage was directed at the cop. Libertarians, because of their hatred of cops and authority, don't seem to be able to correctly apprise situations in which the arrestees behavior is deemed far more outrageous than the cops because most libertarians think cop behavior is always outrageous (even when a cop lets someone off the hook for a MIP).

[UCrawford]

I agree with Sam about how this will be perceived. I think how it's perceived is also irrelevant to whether the officer was right or wrong. The only relevant factors are what happened in the incident.

For whether the cop is right or wrong, I think he screwed up and was negligent and the woman getting injured was his fault. Whether or not he's justified in throwing a suspect to the ground when they're non-compliant as opposed to violent, he's standing on pavement and there was a reasonable expectation that the person could be severely injured by throwing them on the ground in that situation...same as that cop a couple of years ago who threw that woman into a jail cell where she smashed face-first into a concrete bench. He lost his temper, demonstrated poor situational awareness, and severely injured a suspect unnecessarily. Based on his body language, I don't think he did it with the intent of knocking her out or hurting her severely...but he's still responsible for his prisoner's well-being in his custody. IMO opinion, not necessarily a firing offense, but something the city should be sued for and the department probably needs to address this with their officers in training.

[Suthenboy]

Sam, Sam, Sam.

A large, young, violent and aggressive man who was clearly a threat is just like a drunk, 5ft tall, 100 lb woman who presents no danger whatsoever. Yep, they are just alike.

Also, Kyle was just like Lanza. Hey, wait a minute, are you really Sheldon Richman?

[Sam Haysom]

Except that for months Reason vehemently denied that Michael Brown attacked the cop. And I never made the argument that she was just like Michael Brown. I made the argument that this lady will likely generate far more negative initial reactions than Michael Brown did. You'll remember the gentle giant propaganda beguiled a large number of people not just libertarians. If you honestly want to deny that there weren't huge out pourings of sympathy for Michael Brown, before the facts came out, that's absurd. In this case no one feels sympathy for this lady. They might think the cop overreacted but that's it.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

The very first, briefest accounts of the Brown case that I read allowed for a possibility of wrongdoing on part of the peace officer, but certainly didn't make it unquestionably true, and all subsequent details made it seem more debatable that he'd acted wrongly for the circumstances. There was also the huge fuss made out of that case, which seems frequently to fall on cases where the peace officer's conduct was either justifiable or debatable, while cases where his conduct is unquestionably wrong rarely get taken up and carried to any extent in the wider public forum. I've seen this enough to make me view any claims of police brutality that are widely broadcast with a closer eye, as the mainstream media is willing to make a fuss over cases that are debatable while it is generally unwilling to even acknowledge cases of outrageous, obvious, and totally unjustifiable abuse.

[Alice Bowie]

You heard it straight out of uncle tom's mouth: The officer did exactly what he's suppose to do.

[GILMORE]

Deja Vu.... wait, didn't her kid get kidnapped....?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Did the cop get home safely?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

That video is cut just prior to the body slam. What did I miss?

the officer did what he was supposed to do in a situation like that."

Yeah, that's the fucking point. Your procedures clearly over the top.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

*are

[Suthenboy]

What says the most about this incident is the videographer who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the cops.

In most of the country cops are regarded as the worst gang in town.

[Sam Haysom]

No they aren't. This is just false. Apportion the blame for this however you want- heck you can even valorize this lady as a exemplar of free range parenting if you like, but the cops in the US enjoy favoribility ratings that would make most other professions jealous. Now maybe people are wrong, but you don't get to project your views onto society.

[Suthenboy]

*cough*bullshit*cough*

[Sam Haysom]

Dream worlds are always more comfortable than reality. I imagine that would be even more of a temptation for a marginal ideology with a self-righteous complex.

[Suthenboy]

I am a middle class white guy. Most of the people I know are middle class white conservatives. It can't be coincidence that I never meet any of these people who love cops. Everyone I know sees them as people to be feared. Everyone I know bitches about the endless parade of killings and egregious behavior on display daily.

I never run into the people who those polls purport to represent.

Once cops may have been loved and respected, but the ever-present camera has killed that.

[Sam Haysom]

Then your experiences aren't representative. All my friends are Rockets fans so I guess no one is a Mavs fan. Those sell out crowds at the American Airlines center must not be representative I guess.

[UCrawford]

I agreed with some of your initial points, but you're quickly going off the rails here with your generalized attacks on what you think all people on Reason believe.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I met folks that loves cops. These are either authoritarian freaks, who appear in any social group at pretty much the same rate, or else they have all been middle class white or castizo people who have both never had a serious encounter with police and are convinced that the police would never target people of their sort (however they happen to imagine it), that it only happens to those other people, crazies, bums, niggers, whatever, and that if they act white enough and respectable enough it'll all go fine for them. But with most people, all it takes is one encounter that demonstrates that they have no magic shield from police buffoonery and then suddenly they see how it is for everyone else. It's the same with folks who encourage further ramification of state authority. They're people who imagine themselves to be within the range of normal folk who will not be unjustly targetted. Unfortunately, there's a huge web of rationalistions and delusions and what not that permits almost everyone in the country to imagine that he is normal and will not be the victim of injustice at hands of the state (until he is, and then, sometimes, if it's not a serious enough violation, not even then), that it will only happen to those other people, crazies, bums, sex maniacs, niggers, democrats, what have you, according to the individual's particular orientation and what rationalisations he uses. And so, almost everyone supports more state violence; they only differ on the details.

[Vulgar Madman]

Yep Sam, people here have been praising her! (In your mind)

[buybuydandavis]

You can go to Youtube and play at 0.25 speed. Google rules!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi_xr8FTy6A

They also have the dashboard cam.

The typical thug. A drunk person acting weird totally under the control of a cop has a human reaction and momentarily resists having her arm twisted behind her back.

This is the unforgivable sin - failure to immediately bend over for a cop.

Instead of having his will thwarted for a moment:
You WILL Respect My Authoritah!

There was no rush. There was no danger. She posed a threat to no one, and certainly not the cop who assaulted her. Instead of waiting a few more moments, persuading her to cooperate, let's escalate to violence and throw a woman to the pavement head first.

" the officer did what he was supposed to do in a situation like that."

Beat the crap out of a peasant who didn't immediately submit. Exactly.

[Drake]

When did it become a thing to cuff people with their hands up around their shoulder blades? I would be fighting too since one of my shoulders doesn't work that well any more.

[RCJP]

Of course you'd be the first to laugh at the cop's incompetence should a drunk woman squirm and twist away before running off down the street.

[Nemo1982]

I would be fine with her running off down the street if the alternative is committing violence against her when she was not a threat to anyone. Not cooperating, or even attempting to pull away from someone grabbing you, is not cause to injure or kill you.

[juris imprudent]

Proof that you should always have a dog handy - not your own dog of course, just a dog that you can sacrifice to the angry gods.

[widget]

Cop handles a drunk woman like she was a strong, belligerent man. Where to begin?

Umm, I don't know. How about Bobby Riggs threw the tennis match with Billy Jean King to pay off his gambling debts?

[Suthenboy]

Haven't heard that name in a long time.

Old joke; What do tennis and Billie Jean King have in common?

[Suthenboy]

No one is gonna bite?

Shesh.

Answer; Fuzzy balls.

That one had my friends in 7th grade laughing their asses off.

[UCrawford]

That must be a 7th grade joke, because the punchline makes no sense. Being a lesbian, the only fuzzy balls Billie Jean King likely handled were tennis balls. So basically the punchline acknowledges that Billie Jean King plays tennis.

It's less amusing that when my niece tells the wrong punchline to a knock knock joke. Actually, it's pretty adorable when she does that. 🙂

[Private FUQ]

The joke was that Billie Jean King actually had a set of balls.

[widget]

Something about balls, but I don't for sure.

[widget]

There was a timer on that riddle?

[Calidissident]

"and interfering with pubic duties"

Am I really the only one that caught that?

[widget]

who caught that?

[Calidissident]

Excuse me my good sir, I offer my sincerest apologies for demonstrating such inferior command of the English language.

[widget]

It's not that, Calidissident. I was just making a little joke about observing details. You observed one and so did I. My grammer is atrocious, I meant no harm.

[Calidissident]

I know, I wasn't offended. The only reason I made that comment was that I was honestly surprised nobody else had caught it.

[Brochettaward]

I have never heard of that charge before. At least not in a context like this. I'm guessing it's a very minor form of resisting arrest, and I'm too lazy to look it up.

[Calidissident]

Did you get why I quoted it? Reread it carefully.

[DK]

No, Caidissident, he needs to read it carefuy. He needs to ook at the ine, again.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

In Montana, they employ "obstruction of a peace officer" to bring charges against anyone who doesn't present the proper attitude (I have heard it put precisely this way at trials) when confronted by raging cops. It isn't necessary to even prove a particular act was performed; in fact, the accused may have taken no action at all and remained frozen in shock when suddenly accosted by some crasy guys in uniform. This isn't an impediment to prosecution, since the accused may still be said to have passively demonstrated an obstructionist attitude by lack of positive acts of a deferential or submissive nature. This is not how the law is worded, but I've seen it applied this way, a number of times, and when it's gone to trial, the accused as been convicted of a bad attitude. It's only thirty days in jail, but still a pretty insane thing to happen in any kind of free society. The law as written is equally bad, since it obliges one to obey any command given by a peace officer, even if it is an unlawful command, and that obeying the officer is no defense if the act turns out to be criminal. It's also not uncommon for the law under which one is charged to be rewritten, significantly, for the jury, they say so that it's more understandable in the context of the specific case.

[Drake]

Is this month some kind of cop free-for-all? Like that Purge movie?

I've seen them shoot people in the back, break spines, beat the fuck out of somebody on a horse, and now try to smash a woman's brains out on the pavement.

[Edwin]

for once this looks like one that isn't over the top.
Multiple calls saying the woman is drunk as a skunk and combatative
It LOOKS like he just slammed her on the ground, but he didn't. He was trying to throw off kilter; if you watch Cops a lot you'll see they do this. The trick is sober people catch themselves. Look at the video and you can see she trips over her feet when he pulls her, and he wasn't pulling her directly to the ground

[Brochettaward]

Why was it necessary for the cop to throw her off kilter? She had her arms behind her back already. She wasn't large. She wasn't even that aggressive. She was simply a stubborn drunk.

Her being drunk certainly played a part in her being knocked out, but the use of force was uncalled for and flies in the face of common sense.

[Edwin]

makes it easier for them to complete putting on the handcuffs. She refused, started fighting him

multiple calls saying she was freaking out. Sometimes it happens, dude, some people get drunk and loud and assholey and annoying sometimes

[Private FUQ]

If a cop can't cuff a 100 lb drunk without throwing her to the pavement maybe he needs to rethink his chosen career path. He had her bent over the hood of the police car with her hands behind her back. She looks like she flinched a little and he pulled her up, twisted her around and threw her to the pavement. That is not knocking her off kilter.

Drunk, loud, assholey and annoying doesn't justify being thrown to the ground with a 200 lb cop on your back.

[RCJP]

Except she wasn't bent over the hood, and was resisting doing so, thus the take-down.

[Private FUQ]

It falls under the common game played today.

"Don't run from the cops and you won't be shot."

"If he/she would have instantly obeyed the command he/she wouldn't have been beaten"

"If you have nothing to hide then allow the police to do search your house/car/person."

[Emmerson Biggins]

A few years ago I would've have perhaps been willing to give the cop the benefit of the doubt.

Given recent enlightenment, plus the fact that Williamson County is known to have the biggest fascist thug police department in the greater Austin metro region, fuck this guy. Innocent until proven guilty. That's how they treat us after all.

[widget]

Is where Team D operatives ended Tom DeLay's political career without a hint of a case against him?

[Private FUQ]

San Antonio may be just as bad. They have a cute law there that if you open carry (open carry is legal in Texas) and if someone feels threatened, you can be arrested for disorderly conduct.

http://www.kens5.com/story/new...../10525830/

To those who don't know, Austin and San Antonio are primarily run by Democrats. This little gem from Austin.

http://www.theaustinbulldog.or.....n-articles

[Greg F]

It LOOKS like he just slammed her on the ground, but he didn't.

He most certainly did.

He was trying to throw off kilter

BS. He pulled her off her feet.

Look at the video and you can see she trips over her feet when he pulls her ...

I don't see that at all. I see him using his lower body to create momentum and uncoiling while using leverage at the highest point of her center of gravity to pull her off balance. Her left foot doesn't come off the ground to well past the point where her upper body is gone past parallel to the ground. She doesn't trip over her feet, she is body slammed.

[Lorenzo]

He corrected her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITtiKO_fBaI

[Ken Shultz]

"The police chief is backing his officer's action in the video with a suspect police say was described as combative, argumentative, and intoxicated by multiple 911 callers."

When they say "combative", what do they mean?

Because the other accusations don't in any way justify knocking someone unconscious.

You can't knock people unconscious because they're intoxicated.

You can't knock people unconscious because they're argumentative either.

Not legally.

If you knock someone you live with unconscious because they're intoxicated or argumentative, it's called "domestic violence". If you knock people you don't know unconscious because they're intoxicated or argumentative, it's called "assault and battery".

[QuadGunner]

Drunk or not.. fuck you... just fuck you!

[Josh79]

The police chief was absolutely correct here. The woman did hit her head on the pavement. You can clearly see in the video that she accidently hits her head when the pig holding her threw her into the pavement. And let's be clear about my verb usage here. He didn't try to move her and accidently drop her. He didn't even push her. He literally THREW her bodily, directly into the ground. That guy was at the very least twice her size and more than likely several times stronger that she was; this is obvious from how effortlessly he throws her to the ground. So how the hell could she possibly have even been capable of doing something, while he was holding her, that would warrant that kind of reaction? I hesitate to post publicly what karma might dictate his reward to be.

[Neil B]

There is no reason for that. None. The problem is the policeman won't be disciplined there by reinforcing the behavior. That woman was no threat to him.

[Hoppities]

I hate it when people interfere with pubic duties 🙂

[Grumpy Old Timer]

Now we know where Ray Rice got a new job. Interesting how the NFL throws the book at a player for knocking a woman unconscious, but a cop gets backing from his chief for exact same action.
ROFL.

[RCJP]

Has there ever been a police use for force that the readers of Reason approved of?

[RCJP]

And it is completely hilarous how the Reason readership rushes to judgement based on a jiggly, long-range, blatantly edited video with no audio - even though the story clearly says a dash-cam video also exists. Perhaps you arm chair police chiefs should see all the evidence?

Because, if the woman was refusing to relax her arms to be cuffed, the easiest way to do it is simply overpowering her, which would probably destroy her rotator cuff and surrounding muscles and be extremely painful. Sweep-leg take downs happen all the time with barely a bruise. This one didn't, likely because she was so drunk she didn't keep her head up.

Or maybe she should just have been set free to drive drunk in your Libertarian utopia.