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Mother responds to viral video of SAPD officer punching teen

April Johnson, the mother of a 14-year-old girl seen being punched by a San Antonio police officer in an online video, is speaking out.

April Johnson, the mother of a 14-year-old girl seen being punched by a San Antonio police officer in an online video, is speaking out.

On the night of May 20, 2017, after a quinceañera celebration, police were dispatched to an event venue on the 4500 block of Wazlem Road for an unrelated incident.

According to a police report, when officers arrived, several party attendees, including juveniles, had been involved in fights and were becoming continuously aggressive with one another. It is still not clear exactly what led up to the events in the video, however, the police report states that Johnson’s daughter assaulted a police officer and she was arrested at the scene.

“As a mother, to sit there and be helpless and you can’t help your child, that’s the worst feeling in the world,” Johnson said. “I don’t want this to happen to anybody else’s child, [for] anybody else to feel what I’m feeling right now. Nobody should have to go through that.”

According to Johnson, her daughter was held in a detention center overnight and is being charged with assaulting an officer. She says that her daughter was simply trying to be a peacemaker during the incident.

“If you can’t handle your job, don’t do it. If you have that much aggression, maybe you should have called in that day because there’s no point, the way you hit a 14-year-old child,” Johnson said. “You hit this child in front of everyone and you exposed this child in front of everyone. You need to be taken off the streets.”

An attorney for the family is also speaking out, insisting the officer be terminated.

“What I do know and what we see on the video is that this officer made physical and violent contact with the face of this 14-year-old,” said Tess House, the Johnson family’s attorney. “We want the SAPD Officer’s Association to be honest and critical of when their officers should not serve in that capacity anymore.”

SAPD Chief William McManus released the following statement:

Per SAPD policy, the events leading up to the arrest of the juvenile for assaulting a public official is being investigated to ensure compliance with Department policies.

Mayor Ivy Taylor also commented on the video:

The video made public showing a scuffle between police officers and a girl is hard to watch and to listen to. SAPD is now reviewing body cam video to determine ...exactly what happened and Chief McManus is keeping me updated on the ongoing investigation. When I supported funding for body cameras it was for instances like this so that we can see exactly what happened and protect officers and citizens.

In the police report, SAPD said that the girl was not hurt during the scuffle. However, Johnson says that her daughter is still in pain.

An online petition has been launched by a local activist group seeking justice for the young girl.

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