WATCH: Terrifying Moment Police Smashed a Car Window and Tased Passenger During Traffic Stop in Indiana

7 October 2014

This is the terrifying moment police drew their guns, smashed a car window and tasered a passenger during a routine traffic stop.

Lisa Mahone, 47, was driving with her boyfriend Jamal Jones and two children, Joseph, 14, and Janiya, seven, in Hammond, Indiana, when she was pulled over for not wearing a seat belt.

Officers collected her license and insurance card, before asking to see Jones’s ID, which he said he did not have because he had recently received a ticket.

When Jones reached into his bag in the back seat to get the ticket, police appeared to draw their guns. They then ordered the passenger to get out of the car, which he refused to do.

Minutes later, officers decided their only option was to break into the vehicle and subdue Jones.

A shocking video, captured on Joseph’s cellphone, shows an officer smashing the passenger window with a metal weapon, sending shards of glass flying through the air.

He then plunges his arms through the broken window and tasers Jones while Janiya screams loudly from the back seat, before taking him into custody.
Arrest: In the footage, Miss Mahone’s daughter Janiya, seven, was heard screaming loudly. Above, the camera shows the police car just seconds after the taser attack (left) and Jones being taken into custody (right)

Miss Mahone and Jones, who was later charged with resisting law enforcement and refusal to aid an officer, are now suing Hammond police for ‘overstepping their authority’.

Today, Jones told NBC News that he felt like his civil rights had been ‘just thrown out the window’ during the traffic stop.

He said: ‘I tried to explain to the officer, my first thing I said to him, my kids are in the car, my mom’s passing, can you please make this as quick as possible. He threw this out the window.

The family’s attorney, Dana Kurtz, ‘Thank goodness Joseph took the video, because the video stands for itself that these officers engaged in excessive force.’

She also claimed the officers ‘had no probable cause, one, to even ask Jamal to get out of the car, or two, to engage in excessive force in tasering and arresting him.’

However, the force has defended the officers’ actions, saying they were left with no choice after the passenger refused a simple request, according to Fox 32 News.

The incident occurred on September 25 as the family headed to Stroger Hospital in Chicago, where Miss Mahone said Jones’s mother was nearing death.

In the footage, the driver can be heard calling 911 to report the officers, saying: ‘I gave him my license and insurance.

‘I also let him know at the beginning to please hurry up because my mom is about to die.’

The video, which has since been posted to YouTube, also shows an unnamed officer telling Jones: ‘I don’t know you and I don’t know what you are going to do.’

Jones, who later claimed he refused to leave the car because of the officer’s ‘aggression’, replied: ‘That’s why I have my windows up. I’m no harm to you right now. I got my kids in the car.’

The officer responded: ‘You’re going to come out of the car one way or another. You want your kids to see you come out through the window?’

Minutes later, he smashed the window and tasered Jones as his colleagues watched. Some of the flying glass allegedly struck the two children, causing minor cuts.

In a statement, Hammond police told the news site: ‘The Hammond police officers were at all times acting in the interest of officer safety and in accordance with Indiana law.

‘In general, police officers who make legal traffic stops are allowed to ask passengers inside of a stopped vehicle for identification and to request that they exit a stopped vehicle for the officer’s safety without a requirement of reasonable suspicion.’

The family’s lawsuit against Hammond police alleges excessive force, false arrest and battery.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2783809/Terrifying-moment-police-smashed-car-window-tasered-passenger-routine-traffic-stop-Indiana.html#ixzz5BF5iqzOO