Body camera footage released in case of Fayetteville woman who says she was wrongly detained
Body camera footage from an encounter between a Fayetteville woman and police officers that led to a federal lawsuit was released Tuesday.
The Fayetteville Police Department had filed a motion with the courts requesting that body camera footage be released of the Sept. 6 interaction between Ja’Lana Dunlap-Banks, 22, and officers from the Fayetteville Police Department, according to a news release. Under North Carolina law, police body camera footage is only releasable by order of the court. Dunlap-Banks’ attorneys also filed a motion for its release and Monday, Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons ordered footage be released with redactions to protect Dunlap-Banks’ privacy.
Officers first contacted Dunlap-Banks about 1 p.m. on Sept. 6 when they spotted her sitting in her vehicle on a vacant lot in north Fayetteville. At the time, police were searching for a man who had escaped members of the department’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Team, according to a news release. The man fled into the woods in a neighborhood near Thorndike Drive, and officers were canvassing the area for him when they saw Dunlap-Banks, officials said.
Dunlap-Banks said she was at the site on behalf of AVA Real Estate, where she was employed as a property manager. When officers asked for her identification, Dunlap-Banks declined to provide it, and she was ultimately handcuffed and detained in what she has described as a violation of her rights. Dunlap-Banks’ legal team filed a federal lawsuit against the city, the police department, the officers involved and police chief Gina Hawkins last week, alleging the officers violated her First, Fourth and 14th amendment rights.
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In the first of the four newly released videos from the police-worn body cameras, a plain-clothed officer approaches Dunlap-Banks’ car as it sits running near the treeline in the empty lot. Dunlap-Banks can be seen in the driver’s seat.
“How you doing?” he asks through the passenger window after she rolled it down. “I just saw you pull back over here. Any reason why you’re back over here?”
Dunlap-Banks tells the officer that the property belongs to her boss. The officer asks for details on who Dunlap-Banks’ boss is and where she works, but it is difficult to hear her responses over the noise of her car’s engine.
“You ain’t waiting on nobody, are you?” the officer asks. Dunlap-Banks says she is not.
As the conversation between the officer and Dunlap-Banks continues, the officer asks to see her identification.
“It’s all fine and dandy what you’re telling me, but it just kind of looks suspicious that you pulled out here in the middle of a field," he says.
Dunlap-Banks repeats that her boss owns the property.
"Well, if you don't mind, you can call him on the phone, I'd be glad to speak with him," the officer says. She responds that her boss was in surgery.
“Do you have some ID on you?” the officer asks again.
Dunlap-Banks seemed to hesitate, then says that she does.
“OK. You mind if I see it?” he asks.
Again, Dunlap-Banks' response is drowned out by the engine.
“Look, here’s the deal, OK?” the officer continues. “I hunt fugitives, all right? I do fugitive work.”
“I don’t even have a record, so,” Dunlap-Banks replies.
“I understand that,” the officer says. “I’m not saying that you’re in any kind of trouble right now, all right? But we had a guy run from us right over here, and it’s just very suspicious that you’re pulling up here and your heart’s about to beat out of your chest.”
A second officer, a woman, approaches out of the view of the camera, and the first officer can be heard telling her to go to the driver's side of Dunlap-Banks’ car. Cellphone video captured by Dunlap-Banks begins at this point in the interaction. The female cop places her hand on Dunlap-Banks’ arm and tells her to take off her seatbelt and get out of the car. Dunlap-Banks doesn’t get out, saying she’ll exit once the officer lets go.
As the confrontation between the female officer and Dunlap-Banks escalates, the male officer turns off the car from the passenger side, removes the keys from the ignition, and goes over to the driver’s side of the car.
“Let her go,” he says as Dunlap-Banks protests the other officer pulling on her arm. “She ain’t going nowhere right now.”
The female officer lets go of Dunlap-Banks’ arm, and Dunlap-Banks gets out of the car. Then, the female officer grabs for Dunlap-Banks’ fanny pack and Dunlap-Banks begins to struggle.
“What are you doing?” she says, pulling away from the officer. “Let go of me!”
Dunlap-Banks is pushed against the car, and the male officer handcuffs her as she continues to shout.
“Let go of me because I haven’t (expletive) did anything!” she screams. “Y’all are hurting me!”
As cars are seen passing by on a nearby road, Dunlap-Banks yells for help.
“Somebody help me!” she shrieks. “Help!”
The male officer appears surprised by Dunlap-Banks' reaction and repeatedly tells her to stop resisting and calm down.
"Ma'am, why are you doing this?" he asks.
Dunlap-Banks starts to cough and choke and tells the officer to let her go so she can throw up. The male officer continues to hold onto her arms, and Dunlap-Banks gets onto her knees, coughing, as other unmarked police vehicles pull into the lot. She is heard spitting and asks for officers to call her mother.
“Why are you so excited?” another male officer asks.
“Cause I know I ain’t did (expletive) wrong!” she shouts. “Y’all came over here (expletive) with me!”
Dunlap-Banks is seen breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat on her forehead, as she leans against her car and talks to one of the officers who has arrived on the scene.
“We’re going to do our thing and then we’re probably going to cut you loose, OK?” the officer says.
In the video, Dunlap-Banks repeatedly refers to the female officer as “that (expletive)” and says she wants her name and badge number to file a complaint.
The officer releases Dunlap-Banks from the handcuffs as officers tell her that her fanny pack and phone are in the car.
“We weren’t trying to give you a hard time, OK?” another officer is heard saying to Dunlap-Banks.
“No, but that (expletive) was,” Dunlap-Banks says, referring to the female officer. “I want that (expletive) name.”
Toward the end of the video, the officer talks to his female colleague as they attempt to write up a ticket charging Dunlap-Banks with resisting, delaying or obstructing arrest. The officers’ sergeant instructs them to only give Dunlap-Banks a warning.
In another video, this time from the body camera worn by the female officer, the exchange detailed in the first is shown, as well as what appears to be this officer looking up Dunlap-Banks’ information on a portable laptop in her police car. The video ends with the officer walking back to her car as at least four other officers talk to Dunlap-Banks, who is squatting in the grass by the trunk of her car.
A third clip, which appears to be from a sergeant’s body camera, shows the sergeant arriving on the scene and assessing the situation. When the sergeant arrives, Dunlap-Banks is still handcuffed and is spitting into the grass by the trunk of her car.
More:Woman says Fayetteville cops wrongly handcuffed her and took her ID; now she plans to sue
Once Dunlap-Banks’ handcuffs are removed and she returns to her car, the footage shows the sergeant giving Dunlap-Banks’ the female officer’s badge number and name and explaining to her the process of filing a complaint. He tells her to come to the police department on Hay Street the next day and meet with him to do so. The footage ends with the sergeant walking away.
A fourth clip, from the same officer’s camera, shows a male officer explaining to the female officer and at least two other male officers that Dunlap-Banks appears to be fine but is upset with the female officer, who he refers to as “Bell”.
“She’s not upset at the situation; she’s more upset, unfortunately, at Bell than anybody else,” an officer says.
The female officer furrows her brow and shakes her head in response.
“She wasn’t taken to the ground or anything like that,” a male officer says.
The video also shows the sergeant interacting with Dunlap-Banks, who is sitting in the driver's seat of her car. He takes pictures of Dunlap-Banks, documenting what she says are scratches on her hand, and asks her if she’ll be able to drive safely. She tells him she is, and the footage ends with Dunlap-Banks driving away.
Dunlap-Banks says she has sickle cell anemia that was aggravated as a result of the interaction, according to the lawsuit. Harry Daniels, a prominent civil rights attorney and one of Dunlap-Banks’ lawyers, said last week that Dunlap-Banks resigned from her job because after the encounter she is now scared to go to private properties, a requirement of the position.
Daniels told The Fayetteville Observer last week that police radio traffic obtained by his team challenged the police department’s claim that officers were searching for a violent suspect.
“The only person they was looking for was 20 miles away,” he said.
In releasing the footage Tuesday, police said no further details would be released at this time because the department’s Office of Professional Standards was investigating Dunlap-Banks’ complaint.
Public safety reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at ABSolomon@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville woman's complaint sparks release of body camera footage
