San Antonio Police Beat Pregnant Woman
Part of a National Trend?
by William Grigg

Beating a tiny, handcuffed, pregnant woman is an appropriate use of force, according to San Antonio Police Chief William McManus.

On July 4, a San Antonio police officer spotted Destiny Rios walking on a city street and asked her name. After discovering an active warrant for prostitution, the officer attempted to arrest Rios. Two other officers arrived, handcuffed her, and threw her to the ground, where one of them struck the screaming woman at least nine times.

Rios is 5'1'' and weighs 126 pounds. She is also pregnant. Eyewitness Lorezno Rios (no relation), who captured the assault on video, recalled: "All I heard was her yelling to get off me. I heard her yell `I'm pregnant. She was already cuffed and they started to beat her."

Chief McManus insists that there was nothing amiss in the behavior of his officers. Beating a prone, tiny and handcuffed woman is justified, he said, "in order to get her to comply."

"Size makes no difference," maintained McManus, who declined to watch the citizen video of the assault. "It's the amount of fight in the person." Apparently there's enough "fight" in a 5'1", 126-pound pregnant woman to pose a significant threat to three large, armed police officers -- at least by McManus's calculations.

This is at least the third recent high-profile case of police abusing a pregnant woman.

Earlier this year in Georgia's DeKalb County, Raven Dozier -- who was roughly nine months pregnant -- was kicked in the stomach by Officer Jarad Wheeler and then arrested for "obstruction."

At the time, Raven was actually trying to help police officers during a domestic dispute between her brother and his estranged girlfriend. After a brief confrontation, the police tasered Raven's unarmed brother. Several officers then swarmed him and began to beat him.

"He's on the ground!" screamed Dozier. "You don't need to do that!"

"Shut the f**k up!" snarled one of the officers. When Dozier continued to protest, Officer Wheeler strode up to her and kicked her in the stomach with sufficient force to open a door.

For about fifteen minutes, the DeKalb County officers conferred with a supervisor outside the house — within earshot of Raven's brother, who was sitting, handcuffed, in the back of a police car.

"He kicked a pregnant woman," one of the officers reported.

"You've got to charge her with something," another replied.

After that discussion, several officers re-entered the home, where Dozier was on a couch trying to regain her composure.

Affecting concern for Dozier's welfare, one of officers asked if they could take a picture of the traumatized mother and asked her to put on pair of shoes and step outside the house for a moment to talk with the supervisor.

As soon as Raven had crossed the threshold of her home, she was placed under arrest for "obstruction."