Georgia cop fired after video shows him use stun gun on woman during arrest, police say

A Georgia police officer has been fired following an investigation into a viral video of him firing a stun gun at a woman during an arrest.

The video, which was posted on TikTok, shows a white police officer arguing with multiple women on a porch.

“You’re on our property,” the woman, who is Black, says in the video. “We did not call you.”

The cop asks the woman if she wants to go to jail and to turn around because she’s “under arrest.” The two struggle as he tries to put her in handcuffs. The officer tells the woman to “get on the ground right now” before drawing and fires his stun gun at the woman, who falls into the bushes. Another woman in the video can be heard saying, “Black lives matter.”

Officer Michael Oxford, the officer in the video, was fired on Friday after an investigation by the police department and after he was placed on administrative leave, according to a Gwinnett Police Department statement.

Oxford had already been “flagged by supervisors,” and the investigation looked at “whether proper de-escalation techniques were used,” according to the statement.

“The investigation in this case has shown that Officer Oxford violated our policy and did not meet our core values,” the department wrote. “For this reason, the employment of Officer Oxford has been terminated as of August 21.”

According to the statement, Oxford responded to a property damage report in Loganville on Tuesday and was told by a woman that two people threw a bottle at her car. The woman who filed the report also said that people “threatened to assault her and beat her 9-year-old child,” police said.Video surveillance footage captured the bottle being thrown and another woman getting the bottle before officers arrived, police said.

When Oxford went to the house that the woman pointed to, he recognized one of the women in the video footage and tried to talk to her about the incident, according to the statement. Kyndesia Smith, the woman who was “tased” in the video, “began yelling at him” and the cop “responded by yelling back,” police said..He told Smith that she would be arrested if she didn’t let him do his job.

Smith received “several warnings” and “resisted a lawful command and refused to be placed in handcuffs,” before getting a warning that she would be “tased,” according to the statement. She was “tased” and placed in handcuffs, after which she “kicked the officer and continued to be uncooperative,” police said.

“The police department takes all use of force seriously. All use of force cases are administratively reviewed through the chain of command,” the Gwinnett County Police Department said. “An investigation into this incident is being conducted. The officer has been placed in an administrative role pending the outcome of the internal investigation.”

According to a police report obtained by AJC.com, Oxford was trying to talk to the woman who matched the description in the surveillance video and was later identified as Aytra Thomas.

Smith, Thomas’ 22-year-old daughter, shouted at the cop, and he warned her she would need to “quiet down” if she didn’t want to be arrested, the publication reported.

Smith was charged with simple battery against a police officer and felony obstruction, according to AJC.com, citing jail records. She was released after posting $5,900 bond on Wednesday.

“He should get fired because he needs more training,” Thomas told Channel 2 Action News on Thursday. “Her side where the Taser went at is messed up. Her neck, her back, my shoulder. It ain’t have to go that way. It could have gone a whole other way.”

“When he came up, he said, ‘Y’all need to shut the f— up,’” Thomas said, adding that Smith didn’t threaten anyone or throw anything, the station reported. “I didn’t threaten him. She didn’t threaten him. She only told him, ‘I didn’t want to talk.’ That was true. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t have to talk,” Thomas said.

This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Georgia cop fired after video shows him use stun gun on woman during arrest, police say."