Kristine Hendrix, a 36-year-old mother of three boys and an elected school board member in the University City School District, filed a lawsuit on Friday, May 26 against three St. Louis police officers and the City of St. Louis for assault, excessive force/battery, false arrest and imprisonment, and malicious prosecution.
On Friday, May 29, 2015, Hendrix was leaving a Black Lives Matter demonstration on Washington Avenue, which had originally started as a silent march by Busch Stadium at 8 p.m.
The group had already moved to the sidewalk and were making arrangements to go back to their cars when the police “ambushed” them, Hendrix told the St. Louis American in a 2015 interview. She was already on the ground with one arm handcuffed behind her back when a police officer tased her body at least three times – all within less than one minute.
Officer Louis Wilson, who is white and is named as one of the arresting officers in the suit, kept telling her to put her hand behind her back, she said. However, she couldn’t move because the other arresting officer, Stephen Ogunjobi – who is black and also named in the suit – kept shooting debilitating electrical currents into her body, leaving her with no muscle control, she said.
Hendrix was charged with resisting arrest and interfering with vehicular traffic, but she was later acquitted of both charges.
On December 1, 2016, Circuit Judge Nicole Colbert-Botchway acquitted Hendrix of resisting arrest, concluding that the “evidence presented in this case does not establish that Ms. Hendrix was ever given an opportunity to comply before she was tased repeatedly and then handcuffed.”
During the arrest, another protestor had handed his phone to Hendrix, who continued to videotape as she walked away on the sidewalk in an attempt to disperse.
Colbert-Botchway stated in her judgment that it was clear from the video and from Officer Wilson’s testimony that he and Officer Ogunjobi approached Hendrix from behind.
The judge further stated:
[T]he “pop” sound of Officer Ogunjobi’s taser clearly can be heard as he applies it to Ms. Hendrix for the first time. Within a couple of seconds of that Ms. Hendrix can be heard saying “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Why did you do that? I wasn’t doing anything?” An officer can be heard saying “Put your hands behind your back,” but before he even finishes the sentence the sound of Officer Ogunjobi administering another cycle of tasing to Ms. Hendrix can be heard, and she screams. In response to the officer’s command, she then can be heard saying five times in succession “I can’t it hurts! I can’t it hurts!” then “It hurts so bad, please, please stop.” She repeats this several more times, then Officer Ogunjobi tases her a third time. Again, Ms. Hendrix screams, then says, “Oh my God, why are you doing this, I’m on the ground.”
Ms. Hendrix was being electrified almost continuously before the officers handcuffed her. This Court believes Ms. Hendrix [sic] testimony—which is bolstered by the audio from the video recording—that she could not comply with Officer Wilson’s command that she put her arms behind her back. The Court finds this to be so because for much of the time she was on the sidewalk one arm was pinned under her, she was being tased repeatedly in quick succession, and between the tasings she was telling the officers repeatedly that “I can’t! It hurts!”
The lawsuit alleges that Ogunjobi and Wilson maliciously intended to cause Hendrix harm and seeks damages for excessive force/battery and assault against both of the officers.
It also alleges that Officer Daniel Zarrick “encouraged, promoted and instigated” Hendrix’s arrest. Although the protestors were walking on the sidewalk at the time of their arrest, Zarrick yelled, “Grab anyone. They were all in the street.” Therefore, the suit seeks damages for false arrest and imprisonment and malicious prosecution for Zarrick, Ogunjobi and Wilson.
The suit seeks damages of negligent training and supervision against the city. ArchCity Defenders, a local nonprofit civil rights law firm, is representing Hendrix. Since 2014, ArchCity has filed 10 police misconduct lawsuits against individual officers and departments in the St. Louis region and settled three. The rest are pending. The law firm has also represented 19 peaceful protesters, resulting in 18 acquittals or dismissals. The sole last case has been appealed.
Hendrix said she participated in the non-violent Black Lives Matter action for her own children and all children – because they “deserve an advocate.”
“I just want all of my loves to know that I fight so they don’t have to,” Kendrix said. “If this traumatic event ends bad police policy and practice, it will have been worth it.”
