Video of the moments leading up to a Texas mother being held face-down in the grass by police as she was attacked in the face by fire ants has been released.
The body camera footage, released by the Santa Fe police, gives a fuller picture of how things went wrong, authorities say.
The incident began when Taylor Rogers allegedly made an illegal turn onto the school grounds to drop off her son. She was stopped by the chief of police in Santa Fe, Ruben Espinoza, who told her that left turns were not allowed.
Rogers drove off. Moments later Chief Espinoza learned that Rogers was driving in reverse at the drop-off area.
“She was in reverse headed towards the school where there’s kids walking into the school,” Espinoza tells Inside Edition. “I had no choice but to use my vehicle to stop her vehicle.”
Espinoza took Rogers down and handcuffed her with her hands behind her back and her face down in the grass. That is when Rogers says she was bitten by fire ants. Pictures taken after the incident show the extent of the painful bites.
Police body camera video shows Rogers screaming and saying there were ants on her face.
“You can clearly hear on my body camera video me telling the officers to pick her up and put her inside the patrol car,” Espinoza says.
The police chief says officers reacted quickly when Rogers yelled that she was being bitten.
“By the time she made the initial complaint about the ant bite, it was approximately 13 seconds where I informed the officers to pick her up and put her in a patrol car. So at that time when they tried she became noncompliant again and they had to restrain her again,” Espinoza says. “She would have been lifted off the ground much sooner if she had complied with instructions.”
Rogers’ lawyer Randall Kallinen spoke with Inside Edition.
“We are not saying they didn’t have a reason to stop her, but once again, there was no reason to put her into the fire ants,” Kallinen says.
The Santa Fe Police chief says Rogers was treated with “respect and dignity.”
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