Sandy MaloneDetroit, MI – Police bodycam video showed that a Pittsburgh-area elected official and her husband were drunk and disorderly, and that she actually assaulted a Detroit police officer, despite having portrayed themselves as victims to the media (video below).
The Detroit News obtained the exclusive to an early review of police bodycam video of the incident that occurred at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel on March 6.
Allegheny County (PA) Controller Chelsa Wagner and her husband, Khari Mosely, said they were in Detroit to attend a concert. When they returned to their hotel afterwards, Wagner went up to their room to go to bed, and Mosely went to the hotel bar by himself.
Detroit Police Chief James Craig said hotel security called the police after Mosley became “loud and belligerent” in the bar, The Detroit News reported.
When officers arrived at the hotel and Mosely told them he was a guest at the hotel, officers checked his identification.
But because his last name is different from his wife’s, officers detained him in the back of a police vehicle while they went up to the room to check his story with Wagner, Chief Craig explained.
Bodycam video from the officers showed them walking Mosely from the bar to the police car, and putting him in the back, The Detroit News reported.
Then the officer and hotel security went up to Wagner’s room to confirm Mosely’s identity.
When officers arrived at the room, the video showed they found the door open and Wagner unable to respond to them because she was giggling uncontrollably, The Detroit News reported.
“She’s toast,” one of the officer commented on the video.
“You been drinking?” another officer asked Wagner in the bodycam video.
Wagner continued giggling, The Detroit News reported.
Later, the video showed an officer returning to the police vehicle to get Mosely out.
The video showed he got out of the car, put his hands in the air, and loudly announced “Hands up, don’t shoot. I’m not a threat.”
Then he walked into the Westin’s lobby, with his hands in the air, repeating those same words over and over at full volume, according to The Detroit News.
In the video, an officer asked Mosely “why you got to be so loud?”
Then one of the black officers said something indecipherable to Mosley and called him “brother,” which set off the inebriated man, according to The Detroit News.
“Y’all treated me like a second-class citizen. Don’t even come with that brother [expletive]. Y’all didn’t treat me like an African American who’s been here for 400 years. Detroit is bull [expletive]. Don’t come at me with that [expletive]. What the [expletive] is going on here in Michigan?” Mosely ranted in the video.
That’s when hotel security asked police to remove Mosely from the hotel.
“We’ve got guests who are waking up,” a security officer told police.
At that point, bodycam video showed Wagner came out of her room wearing a football jersey and tried to touch one of the officers, The Detroit News reported.
“Don’t touch me,” the officer told Wagner, and she began cursing at him.
“I’m the highest-ranking elected official in my county,” Wagner said in the video.
“I’m not in your county,” the officer replied, according to The Detroit News.
The officers explain to Wagner that hotel security has kicked her husband out of the Westin, and they give her the option to stay or leave with him.
In the video, Wagner stepped forward and reached out to grab an officer’s arms.
“No, no, this is my hotel,” Wagner said.
‘Ma’am, why are your hands on me?” the officer asked.
“You’re on camera,” he advised her.
“This is my hotel room,” Wagner repeated multiple times.
Then the video showed she said to the officers “Please Tase me,” The Detroit News reported.
Her husband tried to intervene but she told him to sit down and she continued running her mouth.
The video showed that at one point an officer did pull out his Taser, but then holstered it again without using it.
“We’re done talking to her. She don’t want to behave,” one officer said, and then walked a handcuffed Mosely down the hall to the elevator, according to The Detroit News.
Wagner followed them, filming on her cell phone. When they got to the elevator, she tried to block the door, the video showed.
“Would you move out of our way, please, ma’am?” an officer requested.
That’s when the video showed Wagner reached out and grabbed the officer’s forearms, according to The Detroit News.
“Ma’am, you put your hands on me; now you have to go to jail,” the officer told Wagner.
“Good,” Wagner replied, according to The Detroit News.
Wagner struggled with the officer, as her husband told her to “chill,” the video showed.
Then the video showed the officer shoved Wagner away and she fell to the ground.
“They get to the elevator and the wife blocks the door, and they ask her to move away from the door of the elevator, the open elevator. She continues to stay there. At some point, she puts her hand on the officer, and the officer takes the wife to the ground,” Chief Craig told reporters at a press conference after The Detroit News viewed the bodycam video.
“You could hear in the video that he said ‘be careful,’ almost seemed as if he was trying to break her fall. He did handcuff [her] and she was arrested for assault and battery,” the chief said.
“I just want to know the reason you just assaulted me. I want my attorney… let me tell you something: I’m the highest-ranking (expletive) female elected official… I’ve never been arrested,” Wagner shrieked at the officer in the video.
The officer handcuffed and arrested Wagner. Mosely asked why his wife was being detained, The Detroit News reported.
“She assaulted me. If you get an attorney, subpoena the video,” the officer told him in the video.
Wagner was taken to the Detroit Detention Center and released a few hours later, The Detroit News reported.
On Saturday, Wagner released the video she filmed of part of her altercation with Detroit police, and said she felt threatened by the officers. She also put out a statement that announced her media availability.
“After returning from Detroit, we scheduled time late Friday evening and all day Saturday to meet one on one with national and Pittsburgh media outlets to share our story,” the statement read. “While our response is fully stated in those interviews, we want to reiterate that our rights were grossly violated as guests of the Westin hotel and visitors to the city of Detroit.”
“We look forward to being fully vindicated on these matters,” the statement continued. “Presently, we are taking time out to recover and spend time with our children.”
Chief Craig defended his officers’ actions throughout the incident.
“We feel that the officers’ actions were appropriate. They were measured, and they treated both with professionalism, given that both had a level of intoxication,” the chief said in a press conference after the bodycam video was shown to The Detroit News.
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office was reviewing a warrant request on Monday seeking assault charges against Wagner.
Watch the video from Wagner’s cell phone below: