Social media users are applauding a police officer who yanked a white woman from her car and forcefully arrested her for drunk driving in a viral TikTok.
The video, originally shared by TikToker @thistheghett0, is approaching 6 million views on the app. It has also spread to Reddit’s r/publicfreakout subreddit, where it has earned more than 21,000 upvotes.
The immense popularity of the video is largely due to its rarity. Viewers are generally unaccustomed to seeing white women get arrested, regardless of their crime or behavior. The manner in which the woman is arrested is also noteworthy, as the officer forcefully detains her and gives her no special treatment. The white woman is treated, as the man filming the video requests, “like anybody.”
The woman—sporting popular “Karen” garb including big sunglasses and a mid-length hairdo—allegedly hit a truck with her vehicle before the video begins. The man behind the camera explains that she hit the truck and crashed into his wife and kids while attempting to flee the scene. (Presumably, his family was in a vehicle of their own). The front of the woman’s SUV is smashed, indicating that she struck at least one of the vehicles with force.
As an officer approaches the vehicle, the man filming asks that he not give her preferential treatment.
“Don’t treat her comfortably,” he says. “Treat her like you would anybody.”
The officer makes an inaudible but seemingly calm request of the woman. When she doesn’t comply, the officer grabs her by the arm and hauls her out of the vehicle. She falls to the ground, only for the officer to help her back to her feet, simultaneously pulling her arms behind her back to cuff them. She stares ahead in a daze for a moment before she begins resisting arrest.
“Hey, let go!” she shrieks at the cop, yanking her arms away as he attempts to secure the handcuffs. The officer tosses her to the ground, keeping a firm hold on her arm, and cuffs her while she lays face-down in the parking lot. She has a look of bewilderment on her face, as if she’s expecting Ashton Kutcher to pop out and tell her she’s being Punk’d.
The officer manages to handcuff the woman, who loses both her bracelet and a flip-flop while halfheartedly flailing. He radios the situation as a “152,” which a Redditor identified as code for a drunk driver. (A list of police scanner codes confirms this.) The video concludes with the officer still pinning the woman down as she fruitlessly struggles against him.
Commenters on both Reddit and TikTok almost universally condemned the woman’s behavior. Much like the man who filmed the arrest, many commenters celebrated the officer for treating the woman like he would any other drunk driver resisting arrest.
“Everyone should get the same treatment,” one user wrote. “EVERYONE.”
“She thought she was finna get that white privilege,” another TikToker commented.
While some commenters felt the officer was overly rough with the woman, most people agreed that resisting arrest deserves a less-than-gentle response. And considering the myriad instances of police brutality—and in some cases, murder—against people of color caught on camera this year, a face plant to the pavement seems pretty tame. The cop didn’t even tase the woman.
On Reddit, much of the conversation revolved around whether the woman was intoxicated. Between her behavior and the officer’s code, most people agreed that she had either overdone it on the mimosas or popped one too many Xanax before the video began.
While many users reveled in the white woman’s arrest, others argued that cops need to act less violently toward people of all races.
“Treating Karens shittier isn’t the direction we should go to get equality,” u/Geowishes wrote. “Cops need to be less violent overall. That said this was slightly satisfying but I want less violent police not more violent.”
The man filming the video also said he needed a paramedic, claiming his kids were hurt and “my little girl can’t even feel her shoulder.”
There is no update regarding the family’s health on @thistheghett0’s page. The Daily Dot has reached out to the poster of the video.
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