Charges against a mother were dropped Tuesday after cops were seen yanking her baby away on video. Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez blamed the incident on a New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) officer.
“Like everyone who watched the arrest of Jazmine Headley, I was horrified by the violence depicted in the video and immediately opened an investigation into this case,” Gonzalez said in a statement published to Twitter. “It is clear to me that this incident should have been handled differently. An HRA officer escalated the situation as Ms. Headley was about to leave the premises, creating an awful scenario of a baby being torn from his mother. The consequences of this young and desperate mother has already suffered as a result of this arrest far outweigh any conduct that may have led to it: she and her baby have been traumatized, she was jailed on an unrelated arrest warrant and may face additional collateral consequences.”
Accordingly, Gonzalez said that there’s no point in pursuing the charges against her.
Statement from Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez regarding #JazmineHeadley: pic.twitter.com/U5jF1mnZJa
— Eric Gonzalez (@BrooklynDA) December 11, 2018
The NYPD and HRA didn’t immediately respond to a Law&Crime request for comment.
Jazmine Headley‘s case became national news when officers with the New York Police Department and HRA were seen on video yanking her 1-year-old son away from her arms, amidst a dispute at a food-assistance office. Footage posted to a Facebook account under the name Monae Sinclair showed the incident.
Sinclair said that a woman (later identifed as Headley) sat in the corner on the floor because there were no more chairs. A security guard came over. From the post:
The Security Guard Came Over Said What Ever She Said To Her & She Made The Security Guard Feel Dumb So She Called The Cops On Her & This Was The Outcome
Note: An attorney for Headley announced Tuesday afternoon that a court ordered her to be released.
She’ll be home tonight.
— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) December 11, 2018
[Screengrab via Monae Sinclair]
