Confusion reigns after a woman who somehow tumbled out of a speeding Los Angeles Police Department car alleged that an officer sexually assaulted her.
The 28-year-old woman, who has not been named, claims that an LAPD officer pulled her pants down and started touching her inner thighs while she was in the back of a police car. She filed suit recently, though the incident happened last year, according to the Los Angeles Times.
For reasons that are still unclear, the woman escaped the car, crashed into the pavement, and landed in the hospital with a shattered jaw. With no way to speak, she couldn’t articulate what had happened to her for several days.
Police say the woman was arrested for public drunkenness around 1:30 a.m. She was handcuffed and put in the back of a patrol car.
What happened next is disputed. The woman confessed to having a fuzzy recollection of the event, since she was drinking at the time. She did, however, attempt to ward off the officer who was molesting her.
“I was struggling trying to get him off me,” she said in a statement. “‘I said, ‘What are you doing? You are a police officer.’ I said, ‘Stop.'”
How the woman fell out of the car remains a mystery, since the back doors of patrol cars are always locked to civilian passengers.
Police claimed that the car was going about 10 mph when the woman fell out, but security camera footage contradicted this report. The car was going much faster when the woman hit the pavement, according to the footage.
The woman waited to press charges, fearing retaliation from the cops, according to the LA Times. Internal affairs is investigating the incident. The two officers involved have not been placed on administrative leave, and remain in the field. (RELATED: Why do brutality charges against New Jersey police never stick?)