Sacramento Police Release Footage After Pregnant Woman Accused Officer Of Pushing Her

Sacramento Police Department on Thursday released the bodycam footage of an incident wherein an officer was accused of pushing a pregnant woman to the ground outside her home July 9.

However, the four-part video was accompanied with a police statement which denied the woman —identified as Zityrua Abraham — was pushed by the officer.

"She refused to follow officer's commands to move, so an officer grabbed her arm and pulled her to the left of him and out of the officers' path to the doorway. After the officer let go, it appears her momentum took her from the paved walkway to the uneven grass surface. She lost her balance and fell to the ground," the statement read.

The city of Sacramento had earlier refused to release the video footage citing ongoing investigations following Abraham's complaint with the police department's Internal Affair Division on July 11.

The release of the clips was a discretionary decision taken by new Police Chief Daniel Hahn, who was sworn in last Friday. The statement said it was done as part of the department's ongoing effort to increase transparency.

"(Hahn) thought it was important to release the video in a timely manner so that the public could view the incident," said Sgt. Bryce Heinlein, a spokesperson for the department.

The videos show portions of the July 9 incident, when police officers came in contact with Abraham outside her Lampasas Avenue home in north Sacramento while looking for an auto-theft suspect.

The four videos are taken from the bodycams of the different officers present at the scene. Several faces in the videos have been blurred to protect the privacy of everyone involved.

In an interaction with the media last month, Abraham said the officers crowded into her house while she was sitting with her mother and her mother's boyfriend, the Sacramento Bee reported.

In the first part of the video, Abraham, seven-month pregnant at the time, can also be heard telling the cops her kid was in the house. It was when she turned to go inside the house, one of the officers grabbed her by the arm, twisted her around and threw her on the ground, she said in late July.

In the video, she is seen being moved out of the front door area by the officer, but the footage does not show her falling to the ground.

After the footage was released, Abraham said the videos didn't show the moment she was pushed to the ground by the officer. "He pushes me out of the way, and that's the cop that did that to me, but it doesn't show it," she said.

She said the videos were not beneficial and termed them "disappointing", the Sacramento Bee reported. She added she was still considering pressing charges in connection to the incident.

The investigation regarding the incident is still ongoing, however, none of the officers involved have been put on leave.