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Published 06/12/2019
Background and Updates
- A family was racially profiled by the Catoosa Police Department, police alleged vehicle matched the description of a kidnapping.
- All 4 children were in the family car and were traumatized; mother says they’ll need counseling
- Sarah Gibson is 9-months pregnant and experienced stomach pains after her and her husband experienced police brutality
- The Catoosa Police Department has yet to return the BWSTimes’ call
- The family has chosen to take down the original Facebook post due to death threats
By BWSTimes Staff
“I have never feared for my life the way that I did on that day,” Sarah Gibson told The Black Wall Street Times in an interview Monday morning.
“I couldn’t even come to terms that this was really happening to me. It’s [the] stuff you see on TV and never think could be you.”
In a Facebook post on Sunday evening that has since gone viral, Sarah said that she and her family were the subjects of police brutality after two officers from the Catoosa Police Department pulled them over in what the family first thought was a routine traffic stop.
In that post, Sarah, who is pregnant, states that she first noticed something was wrong when she saw officers approach her car with their guns drawn.
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“At this point, the officer is yelling GET THE FUCK OUT THE CAR so I got out with my hands up in the air fearing for my life at this point he puts his gun away rushes up to me puts me in cuffs and slams me on the front of the cop car,” Sarah wrote.
“I was so scared and confused I didn’t have time to ask anything, and they wouldn’t let me ask anything,” Sarah told the Black Wall Street Times, noting again that the officers “kept threatening to make me a widow and kill my husband.”
Olivia Brewer reached out to the Times and stated that she was pulled across the street at the local Quick Trip and witnessed the event take place for roughly ten minutes.
“I saw the officers draw the gun on the left side of the window yelling and screaming after the girl got out,” Brewer said, “the young man complied and got out with his hands up and didn’t seem to be resisting arrest or anything like that, and they violently took him and slammed him.”
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Brewer stated she could hear the police screaming at Pete Gibson from across the street.
She noted that after Mr. Gibson was handcuffed, she watched as officers “took him up and slammed him onto the hood of the police car and twisted his wrist so hard it looked like it would break… he was completely compliant and not fighting back at all.”
Brewer said that she tried to take a cell phone video of the incident, but couldn’t get her phone to work.
The Times reached out to the police department for comment on Monday and Tuesday morning regarding the incident but has not yet heard back. We will update our reporting when we do.
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Sarah said in a statement to the Times that, for her own peace of mind, “I have made peace in my heart with the officers and give them grace… but I feel like my family and I are going to need serious counseling due to all of the emotional trauma.”
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