An attorney representing three of the women arrested after a scuffle with an off-duty Atlanta police officer at a Buckhead IHOP said the police reports written about that incident are "riddled with inaccuracies."
Atlanta attorney Bobby Aniekwu said Thursday he will wait until the Atlanta Police Department finishes its internal investigation on the incident before deciding whether to take legal action over what happened at the restaurant April 23.
One of the women, Roberta Caban, was interviewed by APD’s Office of Professional Standards, Aniekwu said.
“Typically I do not make my clients available when charges are pending, but in the interest of having a complete record and having an input into the internal affairs investigation, it was important that one of my clients at least challenge the written statements by the officers involved,” Aniekwu told the AJC Thursday.
Caban and Cynthia Freeman met with reporters days after the IHOP incident. Their version of what happened and the one told by police officers via arrest reports is very different.
Aniekwu said he’s not surprised by the discrepancies.
“The truth will come out in court,” he said. “We’re not concerned with the inaccuracies at this point. He specifically challenged one of the supplemental arrest reports that said Freeman ran out of the restaurant and was hiding in the back seat of a car as it tried to leave the parking lot.
Freeman had been ordered to sit down next to the front door of the IHOP, according to Atlanta Police Officer R.C. Stoddard, who was on duty that night and drove to the restaurant when the off-duty officer radioed for help.
In his report, Stoddard said he turned around to help the off-duty officer, and Freeman “ran out of the restaurant into the parking lot.” Authorities found her “hiding in the back of a vehicle that was attempting to exit the location,” Stoddard wrote in his report, released Tuesday.
Freeman was one of four women arrested. She was charged with criminal trespass, obstruction and simple battery.
Another woman, Ashley Leavell, is accused of punching another police officer, who was off-duty but hired by the Buckhead IHOP to be the restaurant’s security that evening. Leavell is charged with felony obstruction as well as public drunkenness and simple battery. If convicted she could face at least a year in prison with that felony charge.
It's unclear what led up to the fight, which was captured on several videos posted on YouTube. In his report, Stoddard wrote that by the time he arrived at the IHOP "I observed a large crowd of people gathered around the entrance who were yelling and screaming." Freeman was trying to leave the restaurant, Stoddard wrote.
In an April 27 interview with the AJC, Freeman said she didn’t notice the APD off-duty officer when she and two other friends walked into the IHOP around 3 a.m.
She said she was focused on two men dressed as characters from the Star Wars trilogy and was talking to them when a man in a blue shirt came over to their table and told them to shut up.
“He just attacked me,” Freeman said, “And I said, ‘What did I do? What did I do? I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sitting with my friends, and I’m talking to the Darth Vader guys, just on a casual conversation ... and then he just out of nowhere came to me, out of all of the people, came to me,” said Freeman, who met with the AJC and Channel 2 Action News in Aniekwu’s office.
Freeman said she didn’t know the man telling her to be quiet was an Atlanta police officer.
“I didn’t pay him any attention what he had on. I was just looking at his face because he was yelling.”
The incident escalated from there, Freeman said, with the officer pulling out some of her hair and then punching Leavell, who had been sitting at another table.
An arrest report released April 28 tells a different story. Atlanta Police Officer Jose Vidal’s arrest report said he saw three women -- later identified as Freeman, Vanessa Chancey and Roberta Caban -- sit in a booth directly behind him.
"I heard Freeman yelling at another booth," Vidal wrote in the report. According to the report, Vidal told Freeman not to talk so loud and said she would have to leave if she continued to do so.
Freeman and Caban told the officer "they weren't doing anything," the report said.
According to Vidal's report, when he told the women they needed to leave, "Freeman replied ‘I ain't going anywhere,' and she was going to call the real police."
In Vidal's report, he said he told Freeman he was the real police and placed her under arrest.
Vidal used his police radio to call for additional officers, and Freeman "started throwing punches at my body to stop me from arresting her," the report said. At that point, Leavell came over to the booth and told Vidal to leave Freeman alone, the report said.
"Ms. Leavell punched me in the left side of my face, I returned the punch and struck her in her face," the report said. Vidal also wrote in the report that Leavell used vulgar language and had a strong odor of alcohol on her breath.
Vidal is on administrative duty pending the outcome of an investigation, an Atlanta police spokesman said.
“Use of force by police officers is a matter the department takes seriously, and the OPS investigation will determine if the officer acted within established guidelines. Chief Turner has pledged to have the OPS investigation concluded in 10 business days,” an APD statement said.
According to several videos posted on YouTube.com, Vidal shouted at a woman – Freeman – sitting in the corner of a booth near the door, and then he lunged at her. Another woman – Leavell – appeared to be trying to separate Freeman and Vidal and Vidal slapped her.
Leavell hit Vidal back, and he punched her in the face.
A second police officer tried to separate Vidal and Leavell. Vidal pulled Leavell away from the table, threw her onto the floor and laid on top of her while trying to get handcuffs on one wrist.
Another police officer tried to hold back the crowd as Leavell, shoeless, was led out of the restaurant.
--Staff reporters Rhonda Cook contributed to this article.
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