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<\/p>\nby Sarah Terzo<\/p>\n
Police brutality, which disproportionately affects Black men and women, has been in the news with the horrible deaths of Breanna Taylor and George Floyd, among others. Protests have erupted throughout the country over the past few months. Preborn babies are not exempt from dying by police violence. In fact, there have been numerous cases where a preborn baby has been a victim of excessive force by police.<\/p>\n
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Emerald Black, a pregnant Black woman<\/a>, was riding with her fianc\u00e9 when the couple\u2019s car was pulled over by police for having \u201cbad registration tags.\u201d Her fianc\u00e9 had been driving her home from the hospital. At the hospital, she and her fianc\u00e9 were informed that she was at risk for miscarriage. On the ride home, she was still dressed in a hospital gown<\/a>.<\/p>\n The police ordered her out of the car. Allegedly, she explained to them that she was at risk for miscarriage and asked if she could stay sitting. What happened next, according to the lawsuit, is that police \u201cyanked Ms. Black from the car, taunted her, piled on top of her and stomped on her stomach leaving a shoe mark.\u201d She suffered a miscarriage soon after the policeman allegedly stomped on her stomach.<\/p>\n Emerald Black had not committed any crime and was not accused of any. She was just a passenger in a car that was stopped for a minor traffic violation. No charges were filed against her.<\/p>\n Black\u2019s lawyer, Patrick Buelna, said that:<\/p>\n [Police] had no probable cause or even reasonable suspicion to use any force whatsoever against Plaintiff. Therefore, the use of any force was unlawful and excessive . . . If officers were adamant about her exiting the car, they should have simply, and gently, assisted Ms. Black getting out of the car. Instead, they treated her like she had just committed a violent felony.<\/p>\n Black is suing for the loss of her baby, physical injuries, emotional distress, and lost wages from missing work due to injuries she sustained.<\/p>\n The incident occurred in 2019 in California and concerned the San Leandro Police Department.<\/p>\n Another case of police brutality against a pregnant woman and a preborn baby took place in Georgia. According to a $50,000 lawsuit, Kenya Harris suffered injuries and a miscarriage after she was brutally beaten by police officers Ryan Jenkins and Richard Brown Jr. Harris had not been detained for any crime. Rather, she had come to the Albany Police Department because her son was arrested. She waited five hours at the police station. Then she told officer Jenkins that she could not stay because she had other children she needed to take care of at home. According to the lawsuit, Jenkins did not like the \u201ctone\u201d of her voice.<\/p>\n He, along with the other officer, allegedly assaulted Harris and beat her so badly that she suffered a miscarriage.<\/p>\n An article in the Daily Mail<\/em><\/a> describes the assault:<\/p>\n Jenkins reportedly grabbed the expectant mother by the neck, before ‘slamming her to the ground’, causing her to fall unconscious. When she woke up, Jenkins was sitting on her, the suit states.<\/p>\n ‘Defendant Officer Jenkins, without provocation, grabbed the plaintiff, who weighs less than one hundred twenty (120) pounds, by her neck and slammed her to the ground,’ it reads.<\/p>\n ‘Plaintiff momentarily blacked out and came to with defendant Officer Jenkins sitting on her back, and with his knee on her arm. Plaintiff was pregnant at the time.’<\/p>\n Jenkins handcuffed Harris, then allegedly threw her against a wall.<\/p>\n Injured and fearing for her baby, Harris begged to be allowed to go to a hospital. Police ignored her pleas and locked her in a jail cell. She was held overnight. The next day, out on bail, she went to a medical facility and discovered that her baby had died. She was also treated for what were described as \u201cserious injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n Martini Smith, a 20-year-old Black woman from Ohio, was pregnant when she was arrested in a domestic disturbance and taken to jail. She had stabbed her boyfriend in self-defense and was being charged with a misdemeanor. The charge against her was later dropped. At the jail, she was tasered. There is a video of the incident.<\/p>\n Male police officers stripped her naked from the waist up, and she was ordered to remove her nose ring. According to a video of the incident, she tried to comply but was unable to remove the nose ring because her fingers were numb from being in tight handcuffs for six hours.<\/p>\n As she struggled to obey the officers, one officer, identified as Corporal Matthew Stice, tasered her and she fell against the wall and then to the ground. When she was able to speak, she said to him, \u201c’Why did you Tase me? I wasn\u2019t harming nobody. I can\u2019t just take it out.’<\/p>\n She lost her baby due to the police action.<\/p>\n She reached a settlement with the city for $27,500, but this cannot compensate for the loss of her child.<\/p>\n Between 2000 and 2017, 104 people died in the same jail as a result of being tasered. All but two were unarmed at the time.<\/p>\n Two other incidents could have led to the death of preborn babies, but fortunately did not.<\/p>\n Miami police officer Jody Martel was arrested and charged with battery and official misconduct after he used excessive force<\/a> during the arrest of Safiya Satchell, who was pregnant. Satchell went into premature labor as a result of Martel\u2019s actions. According to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle, Martel \u201cwent into Satchell\u2019s car without any evidence that she had committed a crime.\u201d A video of the incident shows Martel reaching into Satchell\u2019s car and Satchell saying, \u201cDon\u2019t reach into my car.\u201d The video then shows Martel dragging Satchell from the car and tasering her, then choking her by putting his knee on her neck. This is the same police move that killed George Floyd<\/a>.<\/p>\n Satchell then went into premature labor. Fortunately, she and her baby both survived.<\/p>\n There was another incident<\/a> where off-duty police officer Ambar Pacheco kicked a pregnant woman, Evoni Murray, in the stomach and caused her to go into premature labor. Murray was visibly pregnant and was eight months along. Pachecho and her sister attacked Murray and her companion, Joseph Predelus, in a Miami neighborhood. The two sisters believed that Predelus and Murray were talking about them. The two victims denied the allegation.<\/p>\n According to Pacheco, she lost her temper and \u201cbeat the s** t\u201d out of Murray. The officer who arrested Ambar Pacheco said Murray \u201cappeared to be in severe pain.\u201d She was also having contractions. Fortunately, she gave birth to a healthy, albeit premature, baby at a local hospital.<\/p>\n The new mother says that she hopes Pacheco \u201cgets her life together and gets the help that she needs.\u201d Pacheco faces up to 15 years in jail for the assault.<\/p>\n These incidents show that preborn children are not immune to death or injury at the hands of police who use excessive force. Most of these women had not committed a crime. Even people who do commit a crime don\u2019t deserve to be beaten, kicked, or tasered if they\u2019re not resisting, whether or not they\u2019re carrying an innocent and helpless preborn child.<\/p>\n Pro-lifers should care about babies who die by police violence. A baby killed by a rogue police officer is just as dead as one killed by abortion. And pro-lifers should be concerned for the mothers too \u2013 as well as everyone else killed or injured by police brutality.<\/p>\n ==========================================<\/p>\n Since this blog post was published, a claim was made that Emerald Black\u2019s story wasn\u2019t true and that there was police body cam footage contradicting it. The original story came from Newsweek <\/em>and The Daily Mail<\/em>. After some digging, I found a blog that claimed body cam footage showed Emerald Black admitting she had miscarried at the hospital. It was difficult to find the footage, but I eventually did. While it did contradict Black on some minor points, the bulk of it confirmed her story. Here are some things from the video:<\/p>\n The claim was also made by the police that the couple was not pulled over due to a broken taillight. Rather, police said that Black and her companion had just been to a convenience store where they purchased alcohol. Rather than checking out, Black\u2019s companion left the money for the purchase on the counter. Therefore, no crime was committed \u2013 the alcohol was paid for; it wasn\u2019t stolen. However, the owner of the store called the police anyway, and the police decided to apprehend the couple for reasons unknown. Whether these reasons had to do with race cannot be determined. However, it doesn\u2019t seem to be common police practice to hunt down people who have not committed a crime.<\/p>\n ==========================================<\/p>\n For our posts on similar topics, see:<\/p>\n Voices on Police Brutality in the Aftermath of the Murder of George Floyd<\/a><\/p>\n Tear Gas and Miscarriages<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Sarah Terzo Police brutality, which disproportionately affects Black men and women, has been in the news with the horrible deaths of Breanna Taylor and George Floyd, among others. Protests have erupted throughout the country over the past few months. Preborn babies are not exempt from dying by police violence. In fact, there have been… <\/p>\nKenya Harris and Her Baby<\/h3>\n
Martini Smith and Her Baby<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/baby-4-resized-300x257.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDangers<\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n
Addendum, September 1, 2020: Clarification<\/h3>\n
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