Your mention of Chikesia Clemens got me curious enough that I tracked down the entire video of the event shot by the Waffle House security cameras. The original viral video had me really sympathetic to her because she keeps asking why she is being arrested and she does not sound drunk. However, the security camera video paints a different picture.

Here is the link to that: https://www.wkrg.com/news/saraland-police-woman-arrested-at-waffle-house-drunk-threatened-to-shoot-the-place-up/

At the top of the article is the video. What the video shows contradicts the impression that some of the stories give.

When reading about the incident, I thought that the young woman walked into the Waffle House and when told she would be charged for plastic utensils (which seems totally ridiculous to me), she calmly asked for the business card of the manager and then while sitting there waiting she was assaulted by the police.

What the Waffle House video shows, though, is someone carrying on, waving her hands in the faces of employees, yelling and so on. In other words — acting in a way that justifies an arrest for disorderly conduct.

The thing is — police brutality against people of color does occur. And there are incidents where police have assaulted black women that fill me with fury. There is a particular incident I am thinking of, a teenage girl who is assaulted at a pool party by officers. There was also the shooting of Tamir Rice, a child who was killed for playing with a plastic gun.

Those incidents filled me with outrage. I found the relevant articles, I read as much information as I could and there was NO justification for what happened.

HOWEVER, in the case of Ms. Clemens — she was obviously asked by the Waffle House staff to leave, and her friends DID leave. This is obvious from the security video. She even starts to leave, but then turns around and starts causing a ruckus. If she had just left when asked to, she would not have been arrested. She could have calmly left, cooled down, and then the next day called up the Waffle House management and reported the wait staff for being discourteous. This is what normal people do.

Instead, Ms. Clemens is seen on the security footage getting in the face of the employees. We can’t hear what she is saying, but with all the finger pointing and so on, I doubt it was pleasant. And her friend, Ms. Adams, is even seen trying to get her to leave.

Then in the photos while she is under arrest — there is a photo of her with a trash can. If she was not drunk, why did she need to throw up into a trash can? Maybe she was sick, maybe she was traumatized. I don’t know. I am not claiming she WAS drunk, maybe the police department took a test and has her blood alcohol level… but the fact that she needed to throw up in a trash can does make it seem possible she was drunk.

Bottom line, there are plenty of incidents of police brutality against all races, not just innocent black people like Tamir Rice. That to me was the worst because he was just an innocent child playing. But there was also a case of a white rancher in whose bull was shot; when the rancher asked if he could put the animal out of its misery, he was shot and killed by police. There is a case where a SWAT team went to the wrong house and shot a Hispanic person. There are many other cases, against people of all races. We citizens should protest the militarization of the police force that puts all of us in danger.

But the particular case of Ms. Clemens… sorry, if she had just left when she was told to, she would not have been arrested.