Cops mistakenly handcuff residents instead of would-be looters

Dramatic video shows armed California business owners and local residents in a standoff with looters — then getting handcuffed when the cops finally show up.

The footage shows two residents from a Van Nuys neighborhood and the owners of a liquor store, who are holding rifles, in a verbal beef with a small group of would-be looters, with the entire incident caught by a Fox11 News TV crew at the scene.

One resident, identified only as Monet by the station, is seen trying to flag down passing police cars, while the liquor store owners tell the looters, “We’re closed.”

But when police do show up, they handcuff the woman and two others and put them up against the liquor store wall — even as the store owners and Fox11 reporter Chistina Gonzalez yelled at the cops for going after the wrong people.

“I was handcuffed, thrown up against the wall with my husband, my brother-in-law,” Monet told Gonzalez in an interview Monday night. “The officer that was behind me, I was explaining to him, no, we’re trying to help.”

Police finally released the three, and officers can be seen running across the street after the looters.

Monet said the trouble began when she saw that looters, including a group that was sitting inside a car, were attempting to break into a neighboring gold store, and said she stepped in because she’s known the owner for more than 30 years.

“They were going after the gold store,” she said. “But being that me and my son and I were out in the front with the owner of the liquor store, they just wanted to jump out the car and they wanted to harass me because I was talking a lot of stuff.”

“And I just turned around, ‘We’re not doing that,’” she said. “‘We’re not tearing up nothing over here.’”

The confrontation came on the seventh day of protests and riots in the wake of the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

“I understand the protest,” Monet said. “I understand what this is about. I’m fighting for the same protest. But what we’re not going to do is we don’t want other people from different cities and tear up where we live, because we have to rebuild this.”

via: https://nypost.com/2020/06/02/cops-mistakenly-handcuff-residents-instead-of-would-be-looters-video/

Photo Credit: nypost.com