Police video under review
Resisting arrest count for woman pulled from car by Albany officers
A video of Albany police officers forcibly removing a woman from her car Sunday night and one of them hitting her multiple times is being shared widely on Facebook.
The video posted by an Albany resident on Sunday shows one Albany officer attempting to push the woman out of her car from the passenger side while two other officers try to pull her out of the driver’s seat of the parked car. One officer appears to hit the woman with his fist roughly eight times as she is pulled from the car, taken to the ground and handcuffed.
Albany Police spokesman Officer Steve Smith said Monday the city department is aware of the circulating video and is looking into the matter.
“We still need to review body worn camera video before we can comment,” he said.
The woman, 26-year-old Brianna Biddings, of Albany, was charged with obstruction of governmental administration and resisting arrest, Smith said, and cited for parking her car in the roadway.
Reached by phone Monday afternoon, Biddings declined to comment.
The incident occurred shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday at Grand Street and Madison Avenue in the Mansion neighborhood of Albany.
The nearly 15-minute video posted to the social media site picks up as officers are trying to remove Biddings from the car. It’s unclear how long
Biddings’ car was parked in the road, as well if police attempted for any length of time to get her to exit the car on her own.
As the events unfold, several people on the street can be heard yelling at officers and asking police what Biddings has done. The Albany woman eventually is carried by four officers and placed into the back of an officer’s vehicle; the video pans the streets after Biddings is in custody and people are heard yelling profanities and heckling officers.
The video was viewed almost 10,000 times as of late Monday afternoon.
The incident comes nearly six months after a violent confrontation between Albany police and residents of First Street on March 16. That incident, which was documented by police body cameras, sparked numerous community meetings over the last few months to discuss how to improve community-police relations.
Albany police had been called to 523 First St. to break up a loud house party, but the incident turned violent and police were caught on body camera footage beating three black men.
Initially, the three men were charged with offenses including resisting arrest, but the Albany County district attorney’s office later dropped the charges against the men and charged one of the officers involved, Luke Deer, with felony assault and misdemeanor official misconduct.
The criminal case against Deer was sent to a grand jury. Deer and two other Albany cops remain suspended with pay while the incident is investigated. Deer waived a preliminary hearing in April, and the district attorney’s office has until October to present the case to a grand jury.