There are reports that on May 7, a young college woman identified as Jessica Cooke, 21, was involved in an altercation with U.S Border Agents during a traffic stop just miles from the Canadian border.
According to Cooke, Border agents threw her to the ground and hit her in the back with a stun gun after she was ordered to get back into her vehicle.
In the video you can hear Cooke, ask the agent why she’s being stopped. The agent tells her that it’s because she is acting ?nervous.? One of the two agents then tells Cooke she can leave whenever she wants to, but her car will be held until the K-9 unit arrives to inspect the trunk.
An agent who identifies himself in the Video as a supervisor, tells Cooke to get back in her car. That’s when the situation begins to escalate.
One agent tells Cook,
?All right, I’m going to tell you one more time and then I’m going to move you over there, you got it??
Cooke can be heard telling the agent? that she could stand where she was and she would sue him if he touched her. The agent responds,
?Go for it; move over there now!?
It’s at that point there is a physical altercation and the camera is knocked from her hand. We soon hear what appears to be Cooke screaming. She told the Watertown Daily Times that one of the agents pushed her against her car, then onto the ground, while the other agent used the stun gun on her back.
Cooke can be heard screaming,
?Get it out of my back!?
The agents meanwhile are telling her to calm down. Because you know, why make all that noise just because you’re being electrocuted in the back? She should have really been more courteous and not made such a fuss over a little electrocution. The agents must have felt it very childish behavior on her part.
In a statement sent to the Huffington Post, CBP said the incident was under investigation. Here is their statement,
“The altercation followed a brief verbal exchange between the individual and the two agents regarding their intent to inspect the vehicle. CBP investigators have analyzed the scene of the incident, are taking statements and have reached out to the individuals involved. Based on preliminary information from the investigation, one of the two agents deployed an electronic control device during the altercation.”
Cooke told the Daily Times that she was put in a holding cell for several hours after the agents used the taser on her.? The officers told Cooke that they were going to consider whether or not to charge her with assaulting an officer.
The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf had this to say about the incident,
?Cooke is an American citizen. The Border Patrol stopped her inside the United States. Although she was close to the Canadian border, she had not crossed into that country. And she produced a New York state driver’s license to confirm her identity. Even if one believes that the Border Patrol ought to operate internal checkpoints within the United States?which I do not?showing a valid I.D. ought to be enough to allow motorists to proceed.?
Personally I think Cooke was being obnoxious in the video, I didn’t like her attitude at all. She came off as an entitled college brat. That being said, she did not deserve to get electrocuted in the back, both officers should have been able to easily gain control of her had they wanted to, or just shrugged and said “whatever” and walked away. But because she challenged them, they decided to make her pay.
They decided to use a “show of force” because she wouldn’t comply with a meaningless order. I’m not saying he gave her an unlawful order, but it was not worth going through all this. I would personally advise anyone who encounters any kind of law enforcement to comply with their orders and not say things like “touch me and I will sue you.” In this case Cooke thought her white privilege would be her shield, she was mistaken. However I do hope those two officers face consequences for taking that situation too far.
Here is the video
