A Texas woman who stepped out of her apartment to record police trying to enter her neighbor’s apartment ended up assaulted by an officer who claimed he was only doing it for her safety.
Rosenberg police officer Adam Vasquez told her since she was already a victim of assault, he had the right to assault her again.
But the woman, Sydney Tawater, insisted she was not a victim of assault. At least not until she was assaulted by the Texas cop.
She insists she was only trying to record the officers, which is her First Amendment right.
The video begins with Tawater standing outside her doorway, about 30 feet from Vasquez, as he was standing in front of her neighbor’s door.
“Go inside,” he orders.
“No,” she says.
“Get inside, move!” he says.
“I’m ..” she says.
“She was the one who was being assaulted,” Vasquez says.
“No, I wasn’t assaulted,” she says. “No, I wasn’t assaulted.”
That was when he stormed up to her, entering her home, repeatedly telling her, “if you’re not going to cooperate,” while grabbing her wrist and twisting it behind her back.
“Sir, you can’t walk in here,” Tawater says.
“Yes, I can,” he insists, still twisting her arms behind her, a complete disregard for the Fourth Amendment.
She keeps telling him she did nothing wrong, but he says she was “not cooperating with the investigation.”
But is apparent from the video that his idea of cooperating with the investigation is to not record or observe the investigation.
A proper investigation of assault generally begins with police interviewing the victim of assault rather than assaulting the alleged victim. It may even include arresting the suspect before coming after the victim if they witnessed the assault as Vasquez claims.
But perhaps things are done differently in Rosenberg.
We’ve reached out to Tawater for more details, so we will update this story when she responds.
“If a random man was assualting me wouldn’t I be part of the investigation but they decide to come into my dwelling and assault me instead for recording because I was concerned for the guy,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
Below are screenshots from her Facebook page where she talks about the incident, including one from the [**Rosenberg Police Department’s Facebook page**](https://www.facebook.com/RosenbergPoliceDepartment/) that states Vasquez became a cop less than two years ago.
Last month, a [**couple sued Rosenberg police**](http://abc13.com/news/rosenberg-police-facing-lawsuit-after-claim-of-excessive-force/1400908/) over a 2014 incident captured on video which they say resulted in them receiving concussions.
