Police in Culiacán, Sinaloa, are under investigation by the Human Rights Commission after a video appeared online showing an officer pulling a woman out of her car by the hair.

The 54-year-old was pulled roughly from her vehicle Wednesday evening by a female police officer after at least seven officers tried to convince her to get out. 

Earlier, traffic police had towed the woman’s car to the police station for a parking violation. The woman arrived at the station and asked to retrieve documents from the car, but instead of doing so she drove away, prompting police to give chase.

The woman drove through at least six neighborhoods at a high rate of speed, running stoplights and stop signs and driving the wrong way on a one-way street before she finally came to a stop on Maquío Clouthier Boulevard, police said.

They said she was aggressive with officers, hurling insults as she clutched something in her hand they suspected could be used as a weapon, and bit the policewoman who finally extracted her from her vehicle and placed her in handcuffs.

The short video shows only the extraction of the woman and cuts off abruptly when a police officer realized the incident was being filmed and began to approach the person doing the filming. 

Mayor Jesús Estrada Ferreiro did not classify the woman’s arrest as a case of undue force and said the woman’s own actions prompted the hair-pulling. “She’s slapping and hitting, what do you do? You grab her by wherever you can and what’s more, I didn’t even see that she grabbed her hair in the video, the video that they sent me is perhaps incomplete,” he said.

“The lady was too aggressive, insulting, and at the moment of opening the door … the person apparently had something in her hand with which she was trying to attack the police, so that was the reaction of the police officer,” said Police Chief Óscar Guinto Marmolejo.

“By instinct, she grabbed the person by the hair, and yes, indeed, she did lower the person [to the ground] and immediately put handcuffs on her. In any case, despite the fact that we could say she was doing her job, this police officer will be called before the honor and justice commission to review her actions.”

Source: Milenio (sp)