VANDALIA — New video shows the moments that led up to a county-wide call for help at a hotel in Vandalia over the weekend.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 6:00, police went to the Hawthorn Suites on Poe Avenue and met a man identified as Christian Thomas.
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He told police that he wanted his pregnant, intoxicated girlfriend, identified as India Trapps, to leave a party.
“She’s in there intoxicated as (expletive), I know at the end of these parties there be drama, there be dumb (expletive)… nothing else but me trying to get my baby mother home,” Thomas said.
Officers knock on the door and ask for Trapps to come out.
“Is India in here?” one officer asked.
The video shows Trapps walking past officers and heading down the stairs. At the landing, she and Thomas start arguing and pushing each other.
Officers try to stop the fight, then Trapp and Thomas turn on them.
“Get off me, get off me, stop touching me, get off me, stop touching me, don’t hit me,” Trapps said.
Officers try to handcuff Trapps after she pushes and hits an officer.
They take her to the ground, where she screams while avoiding being cuffed.
Around this time, an officer drops a Signal 99, or a county-wide call for help.
“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” Trapps said.
Video shows officers start struggling with Thomas as things continue to escalate with Trapps.
Police said he began hitting and shoving officers while trying to get to her.
“Turn around, you’re under arrest,” an officer tells Thomas.
Video shows another officer deploying their taser on Thomas seconds later. Officers then handcuffed him.
“What’d you all tase me for, bro?” Thomas asks.
“Because you resisted arrest, you were fighting, punching, kicking,” an officer replies.
Officers then took Thomas to a cruiser. Trapps is heard asking the same question.
“Why’d you tase him?” she asks.
The pair was eventually booked into the Montgomery County Jail, but have since been released.
News Center 7’s Mike Campbell checked with county prosecutors, who said Trapps and Thomas are both charged with resisting arrest and obstructing official business.
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