The police department of Wildwood, New Jersey is investigating the violent arrest of a Philadelphia woman who was punched in the head by a police officer on a New Jersey beach over the holiday weekend.
In the arrest video that has gone viral, an officer is seen on top of Emily Weinman after pulling her backwards in a choke hold. Weinman was being arrested for underage drinking on the beach this past Saturday around 4 p.m.
The officer is then seen in the video footage recorded by an eyewitness, Lexy Hewitt, punching the 20-year-old twice as beach-goers yell for Weinman to stop resisting arrest. Another officer in the video can be seen attempting to restrain the Philadelphia woman.
According to Weinman, who posted about the incident on her Facebook page, says she was first approached by the NJ police because she had alcohol on the beach. She was then given a breathalyzer test. After passing, she proceeded to leave to make a phone call when the officers started following her.
“I asked them don’t they have something better to do as cops than to stop people for underage drinking on the beach,” Weinman recounted in her Facebook post. An officer then stated, “I was gonna let you go but now I’ll write you up.”
That is when the police began to arrest Weinman in front of a crowd on the beach.
“She started screaming initially. It was almost like blood-curdling,” Hewitt stated. “The officers were on top of her on the ground and that’s when I just decided — there’s so much going on everywhere — why not, just in case [record the incident].”
Weinman, who was at the beach with her 18-month-old daughter, her boyfriend and a friend, has since taken her comments and the video down from her Facebook page.
The New Jersey Police Department has declined to comment on the incident until after the holiday weekend.
