Teenagers Brie & Jeweliana Urban have been identified have been identified as the two girls who were seen being thrown to the ground by North Carolina police officers. The video, which has caused widespread outrage due to the actions of the officers, was uploaded to Facebook on Monday, December 10.
According to reports, officers were responding to a complaint about illegal drug activity when one of the responding officers saw a vehicle and a man matching the descriptions provided by the caller. The officers, who smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle, approached the car.
After detaining four people inside the car — including the 17-year-old driver Tyrese Namirr — Brie, 17, and Jeweliana, 14, began recording the arrest on their cellphone.
As they were recording, one of the responding officers, who remains unidentified, grabs Jeweliana’s phone wrestles her to the ground.
“What are you doing right now? She didn’t do anything. Why are you doing that? What did she do? You snatched her phone from her. That’s her personal property,” Brie Urban can be heard yelling.
via WRAL:
On Tuesday, Brie Urban recounted how she felt. “Seeing my little sister, she’s 14, being tackled like that by a grown man, it was hard for me,” she said.
A second deputy helps restrain the younger girl and handcuff her, and as they lift her to her feet and pick up a small vial nearby, she kicks her cellphone on the ground over to her sister.
“This is my sister’s personal property,” Brie Urban says as the first deputy rushes over to her after she picks up the phone. “This is evidence,” the deputy responds.
The video shows the two scuffling and the 17-year-old being wrestled to the ground. “I didn’t do anything, sir. I did absolutely, I did nothing, sir,” she says before the video ends.
The deputies eventually gave the girls their phones back and neither of the teens were charged.
Following the spread of the video, the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office announced on Tuesday, December 11, that the unidentified deputy was placed on administrative leave while they conduct an investigation. The State Bureau of Investigation has been called in to review the incident.
Police say that a handgun and a small amount of marijuana was found on inside the car. Gary, the driver of the car, was charged with carrying a concealed gun and possession of a handgun by a minor.