Police in Cobb County, Georgia confronted a woman who they wrongfully identified as a bank robber in an incident that resulted in a physical altercation and handcuffs. According to reports, Deondra Hawkins had been running errands in the area along with two of her kids when she decided to pull their vehicle over at a gas station in the city of Marietta so that her teenage daughter could use the restroom. When the cops arrived on the scene shortly after, they pulled their guns out and demanded that Hawkins get out of her car because they believed that it matched the description of an automobile that was recently involved in a bank heist. The entire confrontation was captured on camera. It soon intensified when Hawkins's daughter emerged from the gas station restroom and saw her mother in handcuffs for no justifiable reason.
"I was using the restroom, and I walked out, and she had guns pointed at her," said Leah Carter in an interview with FOX 5 Atlanta.
When Carter attempted to approach the police officers to ascertain the situation regarding her mother, another officer grabbed the teenager and forced her away. Video footage of the occurrence was captured by a UPS driver nearby, and it depicts the teenager screaming, "No, I'm not walking away! Stop touching me!"
The police eventually released Deaondra Hawkins, but not until after they detained her family members on the scene. Since then, the Cobb County Police Department has confirmed that the confrontation was a result of mistaken identity on their part. "The suspect they were looking for was tall and slim, and that didn’t fit any of us," Hawkins said during an interview with FOX 5 Atlanta. "They separated us and made us sit in cop cars. My son was on the ground, and they didn’t tell us anything until the end."
In the aftermath of the incident, Hawkins and her family are pursuing legal action and a change in some bylaws regarding police reform. "We think they need training, said the family's attorney Kayla Bumpus. "Sensitivity training. We can’t understand why the officer would be trying to separate two minor children from their mother. No matter what."
There is still no word on whether or not the police officers involved in the incident will face disciplinary action from their own precinct.
Scroll up to watch footage of the confrontation.
Source: FOX Atlanta