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Video Shows Florida Cop Dragging Shackled Woman Through Courthouse by Her Feet

The 28-year-old woman had just left a mental competency hearing and shouts “I wish they would kill me already!” as a deputy hauls her across the floor.
Image via YouTube/WSVN-TV

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A Florida police officer has been caught on video dragging a woman through a courthouse hallway by the shackles on her feet.

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said Christopher Johnson is on restricted duty pending an internal investigation of the incident in which the deputy was filmed yanking Dasyl Jeanette Rios, 28, across the floor of the Broward courthouse Monday, the Sun Sentinel reported.

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"I am concerned by the way the deputy handled this situation, because there were other courses of action he could have taken," Israel said in a statement.

Johnson, a 27-year veteran of the department, has been ordered to stay away from inmates until further notice.

Rios had reportedly just left a mental competency hearing on misdemeanor trespassing and criminal mischief charges in which Broward Judge Kal Le Var Evans declared her mentally incompetent.

Witnesses said Rios began arguing with a female deputy after the hearing and was escorted out of the courtroom by Johnson into the hallway, where she sat on a bench and began to cry.

Johnson reportedly told Rios to "get up," before physically grabbing the woman by her leg restraints and hauling her across the floor.

Video courtesy WSVN-TV/Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

"Stop! You're hurting me!" Rios yells in the video. "You're fucking hurting me! I hate my life! I wish they would kill me already! Why do I have to be alive?"

"I gave you a chance," Johnson replies.

"I'm not going back to get beat up!" Rios yells. "I'm not going back to get beat up by BSO! No!"

Rios repeatedly screams "no," as she is dragged through the door before the video ends.

"This is really barbaric, and I'm just extremely disappointed," attorney Bill Gelin, who caught the incident on cellphone camera, told WSVN-TV. "We all work together in the court system, particularly in the criminal justice system, and this just gives everybody a black eye."

Rios remains in jail without bond.