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Mom and Kids Rammed Head-On by a Police Car. Cops Had the Wrong Person.

Jamee Kimble, who was out getting groceries, had given birth just six days earlier.
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A Virginia woman who’d given birth six days earlier says she was on her way to buy groceries with her kids and a friend when Fairfax County police cars suddenly surrounded her vehicle at an intersection and one rammed her car head-on.

“They had me hold both of my hands out the car window while they pointed a gun at me screaming that I could become a threat if I moved,” Jamee Kimble, who is Black, said in an Instagram caption alongside a video she filmed in the aftermath of the Oct. 1 incident. “In front of my kids!”

The vehicle Kimble was driving had been flagged in the database of the National Crime Information Center, according to a statement by the department, and police say they’d been warned that the occupants could be armed and dangerous.

Now, Kimble says she wants the Fairfax County Police Department to issue a formal apology for the terrifying ordeal.

“It was just so shocking and mind-wrecking,” the mother of three told NBC4 Washington. “I still am very angry and, more than anything, hurt, because I teach my children that the police are supposed to protect us, and that if they need anything, they can call them for help.”

Kimble says the officers, with guns pointed at her and her friend, claimed her vehicle had been involved in a high-speed chase days earlier. In the video Kimble posted to Instagram, she explains that there was no way she could have been involved in that alleged crime. She also says that police conducted their stop without warning, without using sirens or police lights.

“He hits me from the front and claims that I was in a high-speed chase,” she says. “I was in the hospital. Having my baby. My baby is six days old.”

Kimble says that she delivered her baby via cesarean section and was still recovering from surgery at the time of the encounter. When police removed Kimble and her friend from the car and handcuffed them, her other two kids, ages 5 and 1, were placed in the back of a police car as officers investigated further.

In a statement released the following day, police explained their side of events, saying they conducted a felony stop and detained the occupants of the car. They also say that a cruiser did strike “the front bumper of the wanted vehicle while traveling at an estimated speed under 10 mph,” adding that there was little damage to Kimble’s vehicle.

“​​Further information confirmed the stopped vehicle was the wanted vehicle involved in an incident in Arlington County and they requested the car be stopped so the occupants could be identified,” the statement said. “Officers identified the occupants, determined they were not owners of the vehicle, were not involved in the incident in Arlington County, and were released.” 

When reached for comment, the Fairfax County Police Department did not clarify what crime the car was allegedly involved in or why police sirens were allegedly not used during the stop. However, Kimble told NBC4 Washington that a police department representative was expected to reach out to her on Wednesday.

Routine traffic stops by police can be deadly, particularly for non-white Americans. The Guardian reported that from January 2017 through April 2022, officers killed 589 people during traffic stops. At least 28 percent of those killed were Black.

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