Deputy smashes driver’s window at Floyd protest

Within a minute after pulling over a 21-year-old woman leaving a peaceful George Floyd protest Wednesday, an Orange County sheriff ’s deputy pulled out his baton and broke her window, forcing her out of the vehicle.

“Get out of the car,” said, Deputy C. Moore, whose first name has not been released. “Do you want to go to jail? Seriously?”

After the woman asked why she was being asked to get out of the car, Moore tried to reach into the car to open the door and she started rolling up the window,

body camera video released Thursday by the Sheriff ’s Office showed.

That’s when he pulled out his baton and smashed her driver’s side window, pulling her from the vehicle and handcuffing her against another deputy’s vehicle.

Orange County Sheriff John Mina called the incident “very troubling” and said he is reviewing the case before any charges are brought against the woman. Moore has not been placed on any leave as of Thursday.

The woman, whom the Sentinel is not identifying because she has not been arrested, asked the deputy twice why she was being asked to get out of the car after she pulled away from a protest near Curry Ford Road. He again responded, “Either get out of the car or you’re going to jail,” the body camera video showed.

The woman told Moore that she wasn’t doing anything.

“You’re stopping in the middle of the roadway. You’re violating a traffic violation, so at this point you’re being detained,” Moore said. The woman tried to tell him she wasn’t doing anything, but Moore said he wasn’t going to argue with her.

“I’m going to ask you to step out of the car or we’re going to remove you out of the car,” Moore said. I’m trying to be nice.”

“I don’t think I’ve done anything to be detained for,” the woman replied. At that point, Moore started to reach into the gap left open by her cracked driver’s side window.

“Do not reach into my car! Stop, stop!” she screamed, rolling up the window. That’s when he pulled out his baton, hitting the window a few times before it shattered on the woman. She screamed, and quickly said, “OK, OK,” while deputies handcuff her then put her in the back of a OCSO vehicle.

Inside a sheriff ’s car, the woman screamed and cried, “I’m bleeding, my face is bleeding!”

She asked Moore why he broke the window, and he said because she rolled up the window on him.

“Because I felt unsafe,” the woman said, with blood dripping from her chin. “You guys are killing people like me. Are you serious? … You could have taken my eye out.”

“Or you could have gotten out of the car, none of this would have happened,” Moore replied. “You did this to yourself.”

The incident was first shared on Twitter early Thursday, in an almost 40-second video that the woman took, but was not shared by her.

OCSO spokeswoman Michelle Guido said the woman was not arrested, but the Sheriff’s Office is considering filing a case with the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office for battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting without violence. Mina said late Thursday he would review Moore’s affidavit on those charges and decide whether to proceed.

In response to a question about the origin of the battery charge, Guido said it was because the driver raised her window when the deputy “attempted to reach inside the car through the open driver’s side window and unlock the door.”

State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, said he watched the video and found it disturbing, and a clear example of an excessive use of force.

“It’s especially insulting given the context, which is that all of these protests are against police brutality, then they actually inflicted [that] upon this young woman,” Smith said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. “It’s a really bad look for the Orange County Sheriff ’s Office.”

Smith said the charges against the young woman need to be “dropped immediately,” calling her the victim in the incident.

“Where was the de-escalation here?” Smith said. “Why was it necessary to escalate the conversation in such a violent and aggressive way?’

Guido said the traffic stop occurred about 7 p.m. when deputies were monitoring peaceful protests near Curry Ford Road and Chickasaw Trail. Guido said the woman was taken to a hospital with minor injuries after the woman requested medical attention. According to the tweet sharing the video, the woman had cuts on her face.

Guido said the woman was also cited for being parked on a roadway and not wearing a seat belt.