Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher says an officer used excessive force when tasing a city councilman's daughter over the weekend.
Cincinnati Councilman Cecil Thomas says Chief Streicher has apologized for the incident.
Chief Streicher released video of the incident that led up to the early Sunday morning tasing of 26-year-old Celeste Thomas.
Investigators say 33-year-old Demetri Washington was driving at the time of the incident in Clifton Heights.
Officers pulled the vehicle over after Washington allegedly struck a garbage truck along West McMillan Street around 1:10 a.m.
A female officer asked Washington for his driver's license several times. He could be heard on the tape offering his social security information. The officer eventually had him step out of the car where he was taken into custody for an earlier felony warrant of burglary as well as resisting arrest.
During the arrest, Thomas gets out of the vehicle. She asks what's going on and officers order her back into the vehicle.
You can see a third police officer, identified as Anthony Plummer, arrive on the scene.
The two other officers ask him to keep Thomas away from them and Washington.
That's when you can hear Officer Plummer ask Thomas to get on the ground.
Thomas says my father is a councilman. What did I do wrong?
She's ordered to the ground again and warned she would be tased.
Chief Streicher says a preliminary investigation shows Thomas fell to her knees and put her hands in the air but was then tased by Officer Plummer.
Streicher says the tasing was excessive force.
Officer Plummer's police powers have been suspended until an internal investigation is complete. Plummer was investigated by the Cincinnati’s Citizen Complaint Authority in a 2006 complaint stemming from another Tasing incident in which use of excessive force was alleged. In that incident, Plummer was found to have used excessive force.
Thomas was processed at the Hamilton County Justice Center and then released. Washington remains jailed on a $53,000 bond.
Streicher says he wants the internal investigation to be completed by the end of the week.
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