Jessica Laurie pulled her car into a Kum & Go in Des Moines to get gas in the early morning hours of Oct. 14, 2021, when an officer arrested her, citing an outstanding warrant.
She was slammed against her car, handcuffed and then thrown into the backseat of the patrol car, according to a lawsuit Laurie filed last week.
Laurie says the officer threw her so hard into the backseat she hit her head on the door and is still suffering from migraines a year and a half later. Court records show the officer arrested her for an outstanding charge of criminal mischief after she was accused of slashing seven tires in a Des Moines parking garage.
The lawsuit, filed March 16, implicates the arresting officer, two other officers who were present during her arrest but did not intervene, Des Moines Police Chief Dana Wingert and the city of Des Moines. The officers are not named in the complaint.
Following the arrest, Laurie filed a complaint and the city launched an investigation into the officers’ conduct. Sgt. Paul Parizek of the Des Moines Police Department said they “investigated the incident as soon as we received the complaint. and it was dealt with swiftly.”
Des Moines City Manager Scott Sanders “sustained” Laurie’s complaint of excessive force, according to the suit.
Parizek said the city’s legal department prohibits the police department from commenting on the allegations of the lawsuit. However, he said that the department owns its mistakes and seeks to rectify errors when they occur.
“It is absolutely right for the community to scrutinize our job performance, and it is essential to maintaining the public trust that we examine our employees’ actions even more closely,” he wrote to the Register. “Our employees are human, mistakes will happen, and when they do, we have a thorough and reliable process to identify the errors, correct them, and prepare our employees so that those errors are not repeated in the future.”