A pregnant woman who was pulled over for talking on her cellphone — and then hurled to the ground and hogtied by CHP officers on the shoulder of the busy Harbor Freeway — has been paid $250,000 in damages.
The 30-year-old woman was charged with resisting arrest and driving with a suspended license, but the charges were dropped after a judge was shown a video of the incident, captured on a camera mounted on the dashboard of a California Highway Patrol cruiser.
"The conduct here is outrageous. What these officers did here was bewildering to me. They knew she was pregnant," said Howard Price, the attorney for Tamara Gaglione. "She never resisted arrest."
The eight-minute video of the August 2011 incident shows a CHP officer tailing Gaglione on the 110 Freeway, with the Los Angeles skyline looming in the distance.
Once she pulls to the shoulder, after first pulling into the fast lane and appearing to cut off other drivers, a pair of CHP officers orders her to toss out her car keys, get out of her dark green Dodge Caravan and put her hands on the vehicle.
Instead, the video shows, she stands and stares at the patrolmen, appearing confused. Officers, in their official report, said she appeared to raise her arms in a menacing manner.
The action caught on the video picks up quickly from there.
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TXT 24
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