Manatee County, FL — Barbara Pinkney, a 70-year old grandmother from Florida, was repeatedly tased during a violent arrest by police who were searching for her grandson who violated probation. Police say Pinkney refused to let them into her home.
“We heard a knock at the door. Actually, there wasn’t a knock. I think they kicked the door. Bam! Bam! At the door,” Pinkney told WFLA.
In a video shot by his grandson’s wife, Elizabeth Francisco, Pinkney can be heard asking to speak to a sergeant. When the police refused, she tried to close the door, but an officer then grabbed her wrist before tasing her and taking her to the ground.
“I was just hollering. I was scared. I didn’t know what else to do. I was just hollering,” said Pinkney, who suffered injuries after she was hit three times with a stun gun in her left arm, back, and upper back.
Pinkney was arrested for obstruction and resisting an officer.
Now, Pinkney, who has never had trouble with the police before said she can’t even sleep at night because of the trauma it caused her. She said, “I don’t know. Whenever I see police I just try to not look at them.”
Meanwhile, his grandson has not been caught. She claimed that “when he was on probation he gave this as his address, but he wasn’t living here.”
Moreover, Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said they are investigating the incident. Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells said, “We’re trying to prove whether or not any policy violations or any law was broken. That seems to be the indication of many in the community, a bad arrest.”
