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St. Louis, MO – A video clip is going viral after social media and news outlets are claiming that police officers “trampled” an old woman at a protest. However, full video of the incident shows the truth (video below.)
The video clip being widely circulated starts as a police line approaches at the woman, who appears to be about 60 years old. That’s when media reports say that the police “trampled a defenseless woman.”
You can see the edited clip of outrage here (full video further below):
The full video shows what the edited clip only hints at.
The police officers were being belted with rocks and water bottles, prompting them to respond with pepper spray. Throughout this all, the woman in red can be seen standing with her hands up.
After continually having object thrown at them, the police officers issued a dispersal order and most of the crowd dissipated. The woman in red decided to remain along with some photographers and agitators.
St. Louis radio host Charlie Brennan was on scene and said that the police were telling people over megaphones “This is an unlawful assembly. You will be subject to arrest.”
The woman responded by telling others to get behind her “because the police won’t bother an old lady,” according to New York Post, who reported the incident as a trampling.
After giving the crowd plenty of time to disperse, the police line finally started forward, anybody who was close got pepper sprayed, except for the woman in red.
Officers continued moving their line forward and she stood her ground to try to hold them back. An officer held his hand out to drive her forward, then she appears to turn around and dramatically fell to the ground as officers largely ignored her and stepped over her.
She was then arrested for interfering and apparently uninjured.
Video of the incident at the ground level shows the rocks being thrown at officers. Note how hard it is to see the rocks flying on video, but you can hear them impacting the shield and see officers moving to block them.
By then end of Friday night, eleven police officers were injured and five had to be transported to the hospital from injuries received from rocks, bricks, and bottles thrown a them.
You can see the video here (full aerial view below):
You can see the full aerial video below which shows the crowd reacting :