LISTEN: Inside the viral video of a Wasilla police officer’s forceful arrest

Two uniformed police officer crouch over a woman they have pinned to the floor in front of several grocery store checkout aisles.
Two Wasilla police officers hold a woman under arrest at Walmart on Feb. 6, 2021, in a screen shot from a video recorded on Facebook live by Mike Linn.

A Facebook video of Wasilla police pinning down and arresting a woman last weekend at the local Walmart has gotten tens of thousands of views and drawn criticism to the Wasilla Police Department.

The 25-year-old woman is charged with misdemeanor assault after police said she scratched an officer’s cheek. The arrest followed a request by Walmart employees that police issue a trespassing notice, because — according to charges — she pulled some pillows off the shelf, jumped on them, and allegedly harassed customers.

The video shows Wasilla police officers holding the woman down before they bind her ankles to her wrists behind her back and carry her to a police vehicle.

Anchorage Daily News reporter Michelle Theriault-Boots spoke to an expert on police use of restraints and wrote about the incident.

LISTEN HERE:

Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here

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