A property manager in North Carolina was leaving her work site when she became the target of police, she has alleged.
Ja'Lana Dunlap, 22, told Newsweek she was taking photos of a property on September 6. Her boss had received a citation from the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina, about people illegally dumping old furniture and trash on the site—so Dunlap was sent to document any dumping.
After taking four pictures, Dunlap got back into her car and put her seatbelt on. That was when two Fayetteville police officers approached and asked what she was doing.
"I was trying to explain that I was taking pictures for my boss," said Dunlap.
The officers, who were searching for a suspected fugitive nearby, asked to see her identification. Dunlap refused, knowing that North Carolina is not a "Stop and Identify" state. That means residents are not legally obligated to provide an ID if they are not reasonably suspected of committing a crime.
One of the police officers ran her license plate number and came up with her mother's name. Dunlap confirmed the car was registered by her mother, repeating her own name for the officers. But they did not leave.
When one of the officers opened Dunlap's door, she started recording on her cell phone.
"She was trying to yank me out of the car," she said. "I kept trying to tell her to stop because I still had my seatbelt on at the time. After that, her partner took my seatbelt off."
Dunlap's shaky video showed her pleading while an officer grabbed her arm. She said repeatedly, "Please stop. Please let go of me."
The officers could be seen wrestling for her phone. After the video cut off, Dunlap said she was handcuffed and slammed against the trunk of her car.
"That's when I was hyperventilating so bad so I started vomiting," she said.
A few minutes later, the officers grabbed her ID from her fanny pack. A sergeant arrived and released her from the handcuffs.
Dunlap said she suffers from sickle cell anemia, an illness triggered by anxiety. The physical and psychological stress she has endured after the alleged assault forced her to quit her job as a property manager.
"I'm still having a hard time sleeping at night actually," she said. "Barely able to have an appetite or eat anything. And also, at the same time, I'm just still trying to find work right now. I'm just stressed about that and paying bills and everything just catching up all at once."
Her attorney, Harry Daniels, told Newsweek they plan on filing a federal lawsuit. He said the police violated several of Dunlap's rights, including her First Amendment right to record, her Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure and state laws against assault and battery.
De-escalation training, which teaches police officers ways to resolve confrontations without violence, has been shown to dramatically reduce the number of people injured or killed by police. In Louisville, Kentucky, a study by criminologist Robin Engel found that officers who completed eight hours of de-escalation training reported 28 percent fewer use-of-force incidents and 26 percent fewer citizen injuries. Officer injuries fell by an even larger margin of 36 percent.
Nonetheless, 21 states still had no requirement for ongoing de-escalation training in 2021, according to an analysis from APM Reports.
In a statement, Fayetteville Police Chief Gina Hawkins said the department was investigating Dunlap's encounter with police officers and requesting the release of body camera footage from a Superior Court Judge.
"I understand why the cell phone video of a Fayetteville Police Department encounter with Ms. Ja'Lana Dunlap causes concern and the desire of the public to know more," Hawkins said.
Hawkins also said that officers approached Dunlap approximately half a mile from a scene where a "potentially violent suspect" had fled from police.
"After it was clear she was not involved, she was released and not charged," said Hawkins.
However, Dunlap said she has yet to hear from the police department after filing a formal complaint over a month ago. She believes the run-in would have turned out much differently if she were white.
"They probably would've let me go when I asked to just leave," she said. "Or they at least wouldn't have put me in handcuffs, for the bare minimum, and actually talked to me like I'm a human being."
Newsweek reached out to the Fayetteville Police Department for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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