Mom brings police complaint to Chattanooga City Council

Chattanooga City Council holds a voting session on Aug. 22, 2017.
Chattanooga City Council holds a voting session on Aug. 22, 2017.

A distraught mother's powerful story of police arresting and handcuffing her 14-year-old daughter in June drew empathy from Chattanooga City Council members at the end of Tuesday's meeting.

"I pray you will do something about these police officers," Avery Gray said after recounting how a city police officer dragged the child out of a vehicle parked on Walnut Street in front of the Hamilton County Jail.

"If I grabbed my daughter like he grabbed my daughter, I'd have gone to jail for domestic assault," Gray said. "Why was it OK for him to break the law and do this to my child and [he] was not disciplined immediately?"

Gray spoke in the public comment period after the council's voting session. Sometimes resolute, sometimes tearful, she described how her daughter was sitting in the driver's seat waiting for her to emerge after visiting her husband in the jail.

She said the officer ordered the girl to get out because the car was being repossessed - even though the officer had no authority to help the repo man in a civil seizure of a vehicle.

Gray said her daughter asked the officer to get her mom, then was reaching into the back seat for their possessions when the officer grabbed the keys, wrenched her out of the car and handcuffed her.

How would you feel, she asked the council members, if your child was crying, begging for her mom, in handcuffs and taken to juvenile lockup "for what? Because she didn't move fast enough for him?"

She said a juvenile court judge dismissed her daughter's charge of resisting arrest.

Gray posted a video of the event on Facebook and said it's been viewed 6.3 million times. Chattanooga police released videos from officers' body cameras in refuting Gray's story back in June.

Several council members were moved by Gray's story, and by her plea not to let the incident be "swept under the rug."

"What you bring to the council about what you went through, how you expressed what you feel, that's important. It has not been forgotten, I promise," Chairman Ken Smith said.

Councilman Anthony Byrd said he'd spoken several times with Gray, and asked her whether she filed an internal affairs complaint - she did - or sought legal advice.

"If the law was broken or an officer inappropriate or unlawful, I'm sure everyone on this council wants to see justice served," Byrd said. "You need to decide how you want justice to look for you and your family."

Councilwoman Demetrus Coonrod has been open about her previous criminal conviction and her fear of police.

"Allegations like this unnerve me," she said, asking Deputy Police Chief Eric Tucker, who was present, if he could explain why the incident happened as it did.

Tucker said he couldn't speak specifically because of the internal affairs investigation but told Gray to stay with the process.

"I think you will get some answers," he said.

The council's sympathy evaporated quickly, though, when a woman accompanying Gray attempted to speak, as well.

Smith said Marie Mott already had reached her limit of addresses to the council - twice in 30 days - and said she couldn't speak, but Mont spoke over him and accused the council of censorship.

"Sir, you're going to have to drag me from up here," Mott said.

Instead, Smith asked for a motion to adjourn and members vacated the dais as Mott continued to press her right to speak.

During their business meeting earlier, the council members:

* Voted to name the building they work in the John P. Franklin Sr. City Council Building after the recently deceased former councilman;

* Agreed to delay for 30 days a vote whether to authorize a program to help nonprofit organizations more easily seek fee waivers for programs they conduct in city parks;

* And voted to accept a three-year, $450,00 grant to expand victim services in the police department.

Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.

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