A newly surfaced video shows police officers in San Diego shooting at a homeless woman and setting a police K-9 loose on her.
The video was shared by Bailey Anderson, who said she recorded the incident from her building on Tuesday afternoon.
According to Anderson, the woman in the video was sitting on the sidewalk and had earlier had an argument with another man. Things were quiet for about 45 minutes after their argument, and then Anderson heard sirens, she told the Daily Dot.
“As soon as I got out on my fire escape, there were over 15 cops pointing their guns at her,” she said.
In the video, which is 45-seconds long, the woman is seen standing by her possessions on the sidewalk. She’s having a verbal altercation with a group of 10 officers who are pointing their weapons at her. A K9 police dog barks at her throughout.
Anderson comments that the woman has a knife, though it’s not clearly visible in the video.
A few seconds into the video, the woman is seen flailing a piece of cloth. The officers shoot at her, and she starts to run. An officer lets the K-9 loose, and the dog chases the woman as other officers run after her.
She runs to the corner of the block, at which point she is no longer visible in the frame. Twelve officers rush to the scene and form a huddle over her.
Anderson told the Daily Dot she couldn’t see very clearly because the officers were “all on top of her,” but she did notice a gash on the woman’s face. Anderson said the cops held the woman down for at least 15 minutes before an ambulance came to take her.
In her tweet, Anderson said, “This is the result of calling kkkops on mentally ill folks. Is the inconvenience of noise outside your home worth a life????”
Anderson told the Daily Dot she isn’t sure who called the police but says she has a strong feeling it was someone from her building.
“They talk about doing it often and they’re proud of doing it,” she said about the people there who call cops on the homeless community in the area.
On social media, people expressed their outrage at the officers’ apparent use of force to address what appears to be a mental illness crisis situation.
“Cannot adequately express how ENRAGED i am!!!” wrote one user. “This victim needed mental health assistance! i was a Social Worker who dealt with hundreds of situations like this, none of which ended like this! Crisis Intervention DOES NOT=FCKNG SHOOTING!!! And, 15 on 1?!”
Some responded with sarcasm.
“I hope the people who care more about property damage than people notice that the police broke the store window, too,” another user wrote. “Police are rioting.”
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