TOLEDO, Ohio — Toledo police have released more than 30 minutes of footage from officers' body cameras that show the July 31 arrest of Olympian Oshae Jones.
The footage, released late Thursday, shows officers arriving at a gathering, ordering people gathered on a porch to either go home or go indoors.
The video shows that officers arrested Jones after she approached them with her phone held up to record them. An officer is heard yelling at Jones to stop approaching the police.
CAUTION: Body camera footage below contains profanity.
As Jones protests that she only wants to get the badge number of an officer, she and officers begin to scuffle as police attempt to put handcuffs on her.
An officer tells Jones to "Shut the f*** up" and "Stop f***ing moving," as she puts cuffs on Jones. Jones can be heard asking the officer to stop cussing at her. Jones also can be heard multiple times complaining that the officer hit her in the face.
An officer can be seen making contact with Jones' head around the 30:50 mark of the above video.
Another officer can be heard saying, "You're supposed to be an Olympic boxer, look how you're acting" as police put her into a cruiser.
Jones, a Toledo native who won a bronze medal in boxing at the Tokyo Olympics last summer, and her legal team issued a request Tuesday for action from the city of Toledo following her July 31 arrest.
Toledo police charged Jones with multiple misdemeanors from an incident that happened around 4 a.m. on July 31. She faces charges of resisting arrest, obstructing official business and failure to disperse.
Earlier this week, Jones and her lawyer, Sean Walton and N. John Bey, posted a video posted to Facebook, in which Bey offered Jones' perspective of the incident and issued a request for the city of Toledo to take action within one week.
"Ms. Jones was asleep in her bed and she heard pounding on her door as the police attempted to kick it in," Bey said. "When she came downstairs she simply asked for a badge number. When that happened, she was assaulted, she was handcuffed and her life was changed."
In Toledo police documents from July 31, police claim officers were assisting in dispersing a large group of people participating in a "course of disorderly conduct."
An officer gave an order to disperse and, according to the report, Jones failed to obey the order and remained at the scene.
The obstruction charge reads that Jones did not follow orders and tried to get between officers and a person they were attempting to speak with.
The charge of resisting arrest claims Jones “began resisting arrest by pulling away and turning into officers as they were trying to handcuff [Jones].”
When WTOL 11 requested the body-cam footage earlier this week, Toledo police declined to release it due to an ongoing "internal investigation" regarding the incident.
On Wednesday, the city of Toledo's law department said police had forwarded the request to its office and that a response to WTOL 11's request would be provided "within a reasonable period of time."
Jones pleaded not guilty to the charges against her and is scheduled to appear in the Toledo Municipal Court on Aug. 30.
In the video, Bey requested that charges against Jones be dropped.
"What we're looking for here today is simply a dismissal of the charges, we're looking for a formal apology and we're looking for the opportunity for her reputation to be put back intact," Bey said.
Jones and her counsel gave the city of Toledo a deadline of one week for the above requests to be filled. The deadline falls on the day of her scheduled court appearance.
WTOL 11 reached out to the office of Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz. His office replied that the mayor is declining to comment.
The full statement from Jones' video is as reads below:
"Hi, I'm John Bey with Bey and Associates and Sean Walton from Walton & Brown and our national hero Oshae Jones, who competed in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and represented our country.
"We're here because of an unfortunate incident that happened right in Toledo, Ohio, where Ms. Jones was asleep in her bed and she heard pounding on her door as the police attempted to kick it in. When she came downstairs she simply asked for a badge number. When that happened, she was assaulted, she was handcuffed and her life was changed.
"Now what we're looking for here today is simply a dismissal of the charges, we're looking for a formal apology and we're looking for the opportunity for her reputation to be put back intact, because what happened we know was wrong. We're talking about a national figure who's been given the keys to the city. A national figure who has represented our country. What happened wasn't right and we want to make sure that her reputation is protected.
"So we're going to give the city of Toledo one week to issue this dismissal, give this apology and allow our client's reputation to be repaired. Thank you."
