After watching this video, Raleigh’s police chief dismissed charges a protester faced

The Raleigh Police Department released video Friday of the June 18 confrontation between police and protesters blocking a downtown intersection that led to two protesters, one of them a teen, being taken into custody.

The Police Department asked a judge to release the video, as required by state law, and posted edited and unedited footage on YouTube.

An initial video without audio shows an officer on a motorcycle and protesters shouting at him.

A young woman with a bullhorn steps in front of the motorcycle, briefly preventing him from leaving.

Body-camera video later shows officers dragging her on the ground before they bind her hands with zip-ties against a police van.

In social-media posts the night of the incident, the Police Department stated, “Officers arrested a juvenile female who assaulted a law enforcement officer as he tried to get a group to stop obstructing traffic. An accompanying adult female was detained and cited for resist, delay, obstruct; she was subsequently released.”

There does not appear to be an assault on an officer in the video released late Friday afternoon, and it is not clear if there is physical contact between her and the motorcycle.

Blocking downtown Raleigh intersection

Officers were sent to direct traffic around the protesters as they blocked the intersection of Edenton and Dawson streets, the Police Department stated in the video.

There is no audio with the video, but the officer on the motorcycle waves his hands, as if motioning for them to move.

One protester walks up and starts talking to the officer. They fist bump, the officer extending his arm first.

Another protester approaches the officer and appears to be screaming at him. Others hold her back.

Then, a protester in a T-shirt tied at the waist who will be taken into custody minutes later goes up to the officer and screams at him. He tries to ride away, but she is in his way. He eventually gets around.

In later body camera footage with audio, police move in for an arrest.

“We’re arresting one person for one reason,” an officer tells the others. “Let them know.”

“It’s going to be the little girl with the megaphone, right in the back corner,” the officer on the motorcycle says. “She’s got a half-shirt on.”

The officers walk into the crowd and pull her away, but protesters pull back. She is briefly dragged.

She gets up and officers walk her to a police van, where her hands are bound behind her back with zip-ties.

“Make sure you don’t say anything to them,” advises one protester.

Police chief orders investigation

In the video of the first confrontation between police and protesters, the officer’s hand keeps obscuring the camera. The Police Department said in a caption below the video that whenever that happened, he was operating his radio.

In a caption, the department said there is no audio during that video because “after-the-fact recording does not contain audio.” The News & Observer called the Police Department to better understand this but had not received a response by early Friday evening.

The next day, Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown said she had reviewed video posted on social media and officers’ body camera footage and had ordered an internal investigation into officers’ actions at the protest.

The juvenile taken into custody was released to her parents without being charged, Deck-Brown said, and the charge against the adult woman was being dismissed.

This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 4:19 PM.