An Athens woman suffered a broken arm last week while violently resisting arrest, according to an Athens-Clarke County police report released on Wednesday.
The incident occurred Friday morning in the Clarke Gardens apartment of 28-year-old Mickalyn Shea Taylor, according to the report.
The arrest is being reviewed by the police department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Athens-Clarke County Police Chief Scott Freeman said Wednesday he already reviewed an officer’s body camera footage of the incident, and it appeared officers handled themselves correctly and the woman brought the injury onto herself.
“While it is unfortunate that this person's arm was broken, this is one of those cases where if she had simply complied with the officer, this would not have occurred and she would have been given her day in court,” Freeman said.
Freeman said in the body camera footage, the officer who initiated Taylor’s arrest can be heard giving the woman 40 commands, which meant the woman had 40 opportunities to comply before force was used to take her into custody.
Still, the police chief said an internal affairs investigation was ordered to “cover all aspects (of the arrest) and provide recommendations for areas that we could do better, if any exist.”
“This case is being reviewed by internal affairs to determine compliance with all policies, the law, and our stringent values of adhering to constitutional policing,” Freeman said. “This is common and standard practice under my leadership and it's my commitment to the community to hold ourselves to a higher standard in all that we do. The fact that the arrest led to a broken arm in this incident triggered my direction that I take a full look at the incident in its entirety.”
The incident began at about 9:20 a.m. Friday when the driver of a private transportation company called 911 to report he was assaulted in his van at Clarke Gardens by Taylor, who was upset the driver was late picking her up, according to the report.
The officer interviewed the driver and a passenger in the van who corroborated the driver’s story that Taylor was irate for the driver being late and upon boarding the van slapped the driver in the face and struck his head, according to the police report.
The officer went to Taylor’s apartment to arrest Taylor, who told the officer she was not going to jail and moved further back into her home, going into a bathroom where the officer placed a handcuff on Taylor’s left arm.
“At one point (Taylor) started to turn toward me and started to raise her arm/hand at me in an offensive manner after she bladed her body off against mine as if she was going to hit me,” the officer wrote in the police report. “She lunged at me at one point.”
Taylor sat on a toilet, while the officer held her at bay by displaying a canister of pepper spray while he waited for backup officers to arrive, according to the report.
One of the two officers who arrived as backup “grabbed (Taylor’s) right arm and attempted to put it behind her back and I heard a pop as he did this,” the officer wrote in the police report.
Police said they rode with Taylor in an ambulance to Athens Regional Medical Center where X-rays confirmed she suffered a broken arm, according to the report.
After being treated at the hospital, Taylor was charged by police with disorderly conduct, simple assault on a police officer and felony obstruction.
Taylor was booked into the Clarke County Jail with her arm in a sling Friday afternoon and was not released until Sunday morning, when she posted a total bond of $4,000.
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