The following video of three Houston Independent School District (HISD) police officers has led to controversy at Sam Houston High School this week.
Yesterday, Ixel Perez, the student in the video, spoke to local Houston media about what she said happened:
Perez said it all started because she refused to give her cellphone to an assistant principal who demanded it. She said the only reason she disobeyed the order is because she was concerned about her disabled mother.
Perez’s mother, Gladys Santos, has kidney problems and receives dialysis treatment. When her husband could not find her, he became worried and called his daughter.
“I checked my phone, that’s the only reason I got sent out of class by my reading teacher. And my reading teacher was talking to me and the AP comes into the conversation and just said ‘Give me your phone, give me your phone,’” Perez described. “I did not want to give her my phone because I was still worried about my mama.”
Perez walked away and ignored the administrators and that’s when the cops were called. Just as Perez reached her mom, she was confronted by the officers.
“I walked downstairs and there were two cops coming up in front of me and a cop from behind me,” Perez said. “The cop behind me pulled my jacket back.”
Perez said she tried to tell them she was talking to her mother, but they told her they did not care.
“I didn’t want to let go of my phone so they like, pinned me down to the floor,” she said. “One of them was behind me, like on my legs and trying to put the handcuffs on. It hurt a lot. And the other cop has his knee on my head, all his weight on me, and I was screaming because it hurt so much. I was crying because I thought I was going to get in trouble with my mom.”
The Twitter hashtag #FreeSamHouston has many profiles weighing in about what happened to Perez. Most of the profiles are speaking out against the officers’ actions:
#FreeSamHouston I hope her mom filed a complaint against those officers. Eventually, they're going to seriously hurt someone's child.
— Tha Remaker (@CedricRemaker) September 4, 2014
A few are saying that Perez should have followed the school’s rules:
Follow the rules people ! She should have gone to the office and explained why she wanted to call home #FreeSamHouston
— jerrie catlett (@jc36397) September 3, 2014
