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Woman claims she was thrown to the ground by Chesapeake Police

Posted at 6:38 PM, Apr 24, 2014
and last updated 2014-04-24 21:18:02-04

Chesapeake, Va. - 70-year old Ruth Davenport still has nightmares about what she says happened inside her Chesapeake home back in March.

"What I would call just police brutality, just reckless rights of a human being," Davenport said.

She says it began when Chesapeake Police came to her house for the second time in just hours trying to serve a arrest warrant for her son, John Davenport. She says both times police came, she had to tell police several times her son wasn't home. She says she didn't even know there was a warrant out for her son's arrest and asked police to leave. Davenport says as they were leaving, she closed the door and then opened it again.

"I opened it because I wanted to see if they left," Davenport tells NewsChannel 3.

She says all of a sudden, one of the officers, Officer J. Ayala Acevedo turned around and grabbed her arm.

"He grabbed me," she said. "Both of them the had me pushed in through the door and slammed me against the wall. They were hurting me, they were hurting my hand they were pulling me hard. Soon, somehow I was on the floor."

She admits she resisted, kicking and screaming as the officers tried to place handcuffs on her. Her felony assault on an officer charge came when Officer Ayala-Acevedo says she kicked him. She says she just wanted to break free because of all the pain.

"I'm trying to get away from these guys. I'm trying with all of my heart because they were wrongfully grabbing me," she added.

But there are two sides to the story. NewsChannel 3 obtained court documents which included a summary of what happened by Officer Ayala-Acevedo himself.

He writes Davenport raised her voice the moment they arrived. he says it was as the offers were leaving, when Ruth opened the door, got in his face and began cursing at him.

He writes after he tried to explain why they were there in the first place, she still argued. So he does write he grabbed her arm to place her under arrest, but says he walked in behind her into the home, never pushed her. That's when he says Ruth kicked and screamed. He writes she ultimately "ended on the floor."

We reached out to Chesapeake Police, but because of the open investigation, they could not comment.

Ruth tells NewsChannel 3 the officer did have a video recording of what happened and hopes that when she goes to trial, it will be the evidence she needs to prove what she says was police brutality.

She is expected in court on May 21st.