'I Can't Breathe': Video Shows White Police Officer Laying on Top of Crying Black Girl

A video posted yesterday evening on Instagram shows a white police officer laying on top of a crying Black girl as she vomits and says, "I can't breathe," through labored breaths.

Someone contacted the Kaufman County, Texas sheriff's department to report that 18-year-old Nekia Trigg was jumping in front of cars in traffic. Trigg is a resident of Forney, Texas.

When the seven-minute video begins, an officer, identified as Kaufman County Deputy Conner Martin, is laying on top of Trigg as women around them scream.

Trigg's mother, 41-year-old Antanique Ray, tells Martin, "You don't have to ever hit her, okay? She will stay down."

Martin tells Ray, "You need to back up. You need to back up." As Ray lightly touches Martin's hand, gripping her daughter's wrist, Martin starts screaming, "Do not touch me! Back up! Back up!"

Ray responds, "Just calm down," as the officer lays back down on top of Trigg. Ray then begins holding Trigg's hand as Martin continues pinning Trigg's wrist to the ground.

One girl says Trigg's name and keeps telling her, "Just calm down." Another person exclaims, "It's 102 degrees out here."

Trigg, still pinned under Martin, then says, "I can't breathe." At some point, she vomits as Martin continues holding her down. The camera zooms in to find a stream of watery vomit coating her right cheek as she heaves with labored breath.

Martin and another officer then instruct Trigg to roll over. They roll her over and handcuff her as she cries.

Ray then screams at Martin, "I need your f*cking badge number and your name." She then notices Martin's body camera dangling from his shirt. She asks him why his camera wasn't on his shirt correctly while he was pinning her daughter.

As the officers walk Trigg towards a patrol car, the camera view gets blocked by the officers' bodies. Then, Martin yells, "Let go of her!" twice before tackling Ray to the ground in the middle of the street.

An officer with a Taser then threatens bystanders to get back as Ray is arrested. The aforementioned second Black girl begins repeatedly screaming, "Put your hands up!" as the officer points his less-lethal weapon at them.

Now laying on her front in the middle of the road while handcuffed, Ray says, "All I did was ask you to loosen the handcuffs on her." Ray tells the officers that she didn't touch them at all.

Near the end of the video, the girl recording it says, "You got seven police out here, for three little Black girls."

Ray was detained in the Kaufman County jail on charges of assault of a public servant and interference with public duties, according to the Dallas Morning News. She was released on bond. Police took Trigg to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.

"Nekia was simply walking home and somebody called the police & said she was trying to jump in front of cars," the woman who posted the video on Instagram wrote in the video's caption.

Ray's cousin, Teronica Williams, told the aforementioned news outlet of Trigg, "Me and our other family members are hurt this happened to her because we know what type of person she is."

"It takes one person to watch this video and devalue both her and Kia's character and have the world thinking they deserve this and that—and that's not fair," Williams continued.

Williams attests that police arrested Trigg for no reason as there's not much traffic to interfere with in the neighborhood where Trigg was arrested.

"Kids are literally always outside in the street riding bikes, playing basketball, etc," she said.

Ray has alleged police brutality on the part of the officers. The Kaufman Sheriff's Office said on Facebook that people should stop calling their office about the incident because the number of calls has become "unmanageable."

Newsweek contacted the Kaufman Sheriff's Office for comment.