A girl who was slammed to the ground by a San Bernardino police officer final yr when she was a minor has filed a lawsuit towards town and two officers.
Erin Cowser, 18, and her attorneys introduced on Friday a lawsuit towards San Bernardino Police Department Officer Jackson Tubbs, Officer Cynthia Guillen and town. The grievance follows Cowser’s arrest from May 21, 2025, during which video captured her being slammed onto the ground by Tubbs, based on her attorneys. She was 17 years previous on the time.
According to the lawsuit, San Bernardino police officers had been initially known as to a report of youngsters preventing at a Food 4 Less grocery retailer. The grievance states that Tubbs walked as much as Cowser, grabbed her by her backpack, pulled her over to the patrol automotive and threw her to the ground.
Video captured on a cellphone and physique digicam footage worn by Guillen recorded the arrest.
“A hip toss that flipped Erin in the air, her legs flying over her head, and she landed face-first, head-first on the concrete,” Toni Jaramillo, one in all Cowser’s attorneys, mentioned. “And what’s even worse was that he had her cuffed, her hands cuffed behind her back, so she had no way to brace herself.”
Cowser and her attorneys mentioned she did nothing to immediate the officer’s actions.
They say the then-high faculty senior was contained in the grocery retailer with mates when one other group of younger individuals confronted them. The plaintiff mentioned she was attacked by the group and as she left the shop, Tubbs appeared to strategy her immediately.
The plaintiff recalled feeling her backpack being tugged after which attempting to take it off. As she tried to take her backpack off, Cowser mentioned officers had been attempting to handcuff her.
“Then he told me, he was like, ‘Stop resisting,’ and that was the last thing I remember,” she mentioned. “Then I woke up, I was in the back of the cop car on the freeway. And I looked down, and I seen a bunch of blood on my body, and my chin was still leaking. And he had my phone in his hand, and I looked up and I asked him, I said, ‘What happened to me? Like, what’d you do to me?’ He was like, ‘You fell.’ And then it went black again.”
Cowser mentioned Tubbs later advised her she’d been injured by the youngsters inside the shop. However, physique digicam footage attorneys supplied from Guillen confirmed that Cowser didn’t look like bloody or injured earlier than Tubbs grabbed her.
The lawsuit didn’t specify the greenback quantity Cowser is searching for from the lawsuit.
Both town of San Bernardino and its police division declined a request for remark, citing pending litigation.
