Hall County

Video shows woman being taken to the ground by officer, but police say there’s more to the story

OAKWOOD, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News has been given video of a local police officer taking a woman to the ground.

That woman, Annie Lloyd, sent us photos showing her black eye from the incident with an Oakwood police officer. She also provided a short video of the incident.

The police department said Lloyd was not cooperating, so it gave Channel 2′s Veronica Griffin the entire body camera video showing all of what happened and the moments leading up to the takedown on Sept. 24.

Lloyd told Griffin that the officer used excessive force. Oakwood Police Chief Tim Hatch said the video does show force, but it will be up to an investigation to determine if it was warranted.

“I was completely in pain. I had no idea what happened,” Lloyd said. “I asked them what happened to my face. I had a huge hematoma. I couldn’t open my eye.”

Lloyd said she was the one who called the police on a female friend who slapped her because she was too drunk to give that friend a ride home.

“I was intoxicated, so I did call the police,” Lloyd said.

She said after the officer got there, he ended up slamming her to the ground.

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“I asked him, ‘why are you trying me when I’m the victim?’ The next thing you know, I was grabbed and slammed on the ground and I’m being woke up because I was knocked out,”

Hatch admits the video does show force and told Griffin that everything surrounding the arrest will be fully investigated.

“The arrest is justified. There was an escalation that took into the realm of use of force. After that, it’s up to the investigation to determine the appropriateness of how we responded,” Hatch said.

Hatch said he released the body camera video because he wanted to be transparent — mainly because a shorter video portion that Lloyd provided only shows a few seconds of video. The entire body camera video is more than 20 minutes long. It shows Lloyd refusing officer commands.

“Go sit over there or I’m going to take you to jail for obstruction,” the officer is heard telling Lloyd.

“I’m a victim,” she said.

“I’m going to talk to you in five minutes. Go sit over there now. Do you want to go to jail, or do you want to go home tonight? It’s your choice,” the officer told Lloyd.

“I want to go home. But I’m a victim,” Lloyd said.

“Then go sit over there. Go sit over there now,” the officer told Lloyd.

“You don’t have to intimidate me,” Lloyd said.

At one point, the chief said Lloyd was told she was under arrest, but she quickly pulled away from the officer, resisting arrest.

“I’m not running from the fact that we are going to do an investigation. If the investigation finds fault, then we’ll deal with the fault. I’m also cognizant that giving out video should be full and complete and not just parts of the video, information,” Hatch said.

Police confirmed on Friday that Lloyd signed the official complaint.

The arresting officer was placed on administrative duty Friday as well, and will remain that way pending the investigation’s completion.

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