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Lawsuit alleges Trenton Police beat up local woman for filming an arrest outside Trenton bar >>
Cut! Antonio Wilkie-Guiot acted more like a heavyhanded and bullish director than a police officer when he “violently ripped” a cell phone out of the hands of innocent bystander Elizabeth Cisco, according to a new lawsuit filed in federal court in Trenton.
Cisco was filming cops arresting people outside the Championship Bar on Chambers Street in the early-morning hours of March 31, 2019.
Seconds later, the bar employee — who was off duty but socializing with colleagues until someone ran in the bar saying cops were tuning people up outside — found herself in a scrum of police officers who allegedly beat and brutalized her for “instinctively” reaching for her phone after Wilkie-Guiot swiped it, the lawsuit says.
Video of the melee obtained by The Trentonian shows an officer — identified in the complaint as Wilkie-Guiot — making a beeline for Cisco as she keeps rolling while cops arrest another man in front of her.
The officer’s hand appears to blot out the footage, which cuts out as Cisco says she was swarmed by officers, slammed against a wall and then face-first onto the sidewalk.
Her glasses were busted and she suffered two black eyes, a cut above her left eye and contusions on her legs and arms, according to the complaint.
Cops slapped her with bogus charges of resisting and failure to disperse, which were thrown out of court 14 months later after cops failed to produce discovery that a judge ordered turned over, according to the lawsuit.
“This case arises out of a series of abusive police efforts to bully, intimidate, and unlawfully arrest a citizen in order to prevent her from exercising her Constitutional rights to video record activities in public and the activities of public officials,” Patrick Whalen, Cisco’s attorney, wrote in the eight-count civil rights complaint.
The lawsuit includes allegations that police violated Cisco’s well-settled First Amendment right to tape officers.
She also says she was the victim of a false arrest and malicious prosecution.
She blames TPD Police Director Sheilah Coley, also named in the complaint, for hiring and retaining the alleged bad-apple cops who roughed her up.
Wilkie-Guiot, who reportedly pushed Cisco’s face into the sidewalk, is one of nearly a dozen current and retired cops named as defendants in the suit, which include a couple officers previously accused of misconduct.
That includes Jason Astbury, now a captain, who makes a cameo in the video after Cisco asks why people are being arrested, according to the complaint.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t here, dummy,” Astbury said in the video. “Why you asking me questions I don’t know the answers to? How about that. You can keep recording me . ... Record me all you want.”
“I’m not coming at you,” Cisco responded.
“Don’t ask me dumb questions,” Astbury said.
“It’s not a dumb question. It’s a reasonable question,” Cisco said.
Officer Chelsea Quinlan allegedly solved the mystery: “[Because] he was talking sh*t,” she allegedly explained of the man’s arrest, according to the complaint.
“That’s why? He was talking shh*t to the cops?” Cisco said in the video. “OK, thank you. Thank you for your answer. That’s a reason to arrest somebody? Wow, seven f**king cop cars because someone was talking sh*t to the cops.”
Not long after that, Cisco found herself slammed down and in cuffs.
“There was absolutely no justification for the use of excessive force,” Whalen wrote.