Woman: Police tried to intimidate her over video
An East Liberty woman says police showed up at her apartment Tuesday and falsely accused her of throwing objects at police from her balcony after she shared a video of police firing tear gas at peaceful protesters.
Abigail Rubio, who lives in the Essex House Apartments on Centre Avenue, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette she was filming the protesters and police when officers on the ground began pointing at her and taking photos of her.
The next day, Ms. Rubio said, two plainclothes officers arrived at her door and told her they had video evidence she was throwing objects from her balcony — a claim Ms. Rubio denies. She said she has reached out to lawyers and filed a complaint with the Citizens Police Review Board.
Beth Pittinger, the board’s executive director, confirmed the board received the complaint from Ms. Rubio and said it will be reviewed. The complaint is one of many that have followed the police officers’ actions at Monday’s protest.
When asked for comment on whether police were investigating residents along Centre Avenue, public safety spokesman Chris Togneri said, “We must defer to the Mayor’s Office.” The mayor’s office said it was a public safety matter.
According to Ms. Rubio’s account, she and her friend returned home Monday from the East Liberty demonstration, where more than a thousand people gathered to protest the death of George Floyd, who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis. When protesters and police began to face each other on Centre Avenue, they walked onto the balcony and began filming.
Police asked protesters to disperse and began firing tear gas and other projectiles — what protesters describe as rubber bullets — at the demonstrators. The video, Ms. Rubio said, shows the protest was still peaceful even though police claimed it was unlawful.
“I have video of them blasting a girl with tear gas while she was on her knees with her hands up,” she said. The videos were spread widely when she and her friends shared them on social media.
Police say they fired tear gas, beanbags and sponge rounds — not rubber bullets — because officers saw a “splinter group” of protesters “break storefronts and throw rocks and bottles at police.” Officers used smoke to disperse the crowd and only used tear gas at other locations in East Liberty following the 7 p.m. incident after additional orders to disperse were issued to clear the streets.
These accounts have been disputed by protesters and witnesses.
After sharing the videos online, Ms. Rubio said police officers arrived at her door at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday and falsely accused her of throwing objects from her balcony. Ms. Rubio said they claimed to have video evidence and showed her a still from the video.
“When they said they had a video, I told them, ‘That’s impossible. I was just recording,’” Ms. Rubio said. “And the photos they had of me were me casually leaning over my railing holding my phone up.”
While trying to obtain proof of Ms. Rubio’s identification, she said, police repeatedly told her they wanted to come in so they didn’t embarrass her in front of her neighbors. “I was talking at normal volume and they kept saying, ‘Shh,’” she said.
Ms. Rubio claims that when she didn’t show her ID, police told her they would post the video of her and ask news outlets to identify her, and they also asked for the identification of her friend, Natalie Lewis, who filmed the police from the balcony alongside Ms. Rubio.
She refused and said the officers claimed they would come back with a warrant and kick down her door. Ms. Lewis said Ms. Rubio called her around 1 p.m. Tuesday after the police arrived. She confirmed the sequence of events Ms. Rubio described.
“I’m pretty mad,” Ms. Lewis said. “I feel that the police are attempting to intimidate us because they know that we have footage that contradicts the narrative that they are trying to spread.
“We saw a coordinated plan where police formed a barricade around a splinter group of a large and peaceful demonstration which happened without incident.
“I am a little scared, because I don’t know what [the police] are planning to do,” Ms. Lewis said. “I don’t know if they are going to harass us further.”
Ms. Lewis joined the Monday demonstration because she “wanted to support the work that people are doing to protest police brutality and racism. I think it’s horrific, and I think we live in a police state.”
Ms. Rubio said she wanted to speak out about the incident because “I want to show them that I can’t be intimidated at this point.”