The fallout continues for the dozens of Antioch police officers implicated in a racist text message scandal.
A new lawsuit has been filed against Antioch and the suit is linked to a 2019 incident involving one of the officer’s mentioned in the text messages.
The defendant claims not only was she falsely arrested, but the officer broke her arm in the process.
“You see about it on viral video but to actually go through it, it’s scary and it’s crazy,” said Claudjanae Young of Concord.
The incident happened in October of 2019. Young said that she was sitting in a car inside of her garage when police officers walked up and started asking vague questions about a crime.
She said that’s when she got out of the car and things took a turn.
“I looked at them and said sure let me go grab my mom. As soon as I closed the door, the officer grabbed me, through me into the water heater, slammed me, and then broke my arm,” Young said.
Young shared videos that she said showed what happened after that initial incident. She is seen in the video handcuffed on the curb after she said that the officer broke her arm. She said it took an hour for an ambulance to arrive.
That’s when her sister, and other neighbors began recording. Young said that’s also when the same officer who broke her arm, spotted the sister recording video and slammed her to the ground.
Young told NBC Bay Area Wednesday that she was jailed for five days following the incident before being released with no charges. She said to this day, she still doesn’t know why she was arrested.
The officer who allegedly broke her arm is Devon Wenger, one of more than a dozen Antioch police officers implicated in the agency’s racist text messaging scandal.
In those text messages, Wenger, appears to send a message agreeing with a fellow officer who said they don’t like body cameras.
The suit Young filed Wednesday claims Wenger and other officers illegally entered her garage in 2019 after reports of shoplifting in the area.
The suit also claims race played a factor.
“So, there were a group of African Americans who supposedly shoplifted at a costume party store. My client didn’t shoplift anything. There was no one to say they’ve seen her steal anything. Her only crime is being an African American,” said lawyer Stanley Goff.
NBC Bay Area reached out to Antioch police chief Steven Ford about the lawsuit. He told NBC Bay Area that he was unaware of the 2019 incident.
It’s important to note that Ford didn’t become the city’s police chief until April of 2022.
As for Young, she’s still recovering from the injuries and hopes the police department can find a way to restore the trust of her community.
“I hope people above them can find people who actually want to do their job and come in and help people like us,” she said.
Source: NBC Bay Area
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