HOUSTON, TX—
Crooked cops -- something you hear about in the movies. However, Annika Lewis and her husband, Sebastian Prevot, say the way the Houston Police Department treated them, was anything but "in-line."
Just days after a town hall meeting where community leaders encouraged citizens to record any police misconduct, Lewis and Prevot say they were victims of police brutality. Here's what they alleged happened, in a nutshell... Prevot was being pulled over by HPD for a traffic violation. Lewis says she was woken up by the sound of his screams and sirens outside of her window. She looked out to see five patrol cars and several officers beating and kicking her husband who was lying on the ground handcuffed. So, Lewis went back inside the house, grabbed her phone, and started recording. That's when Lewis says an officer grabbed her arm, took away her cell phone, and beat her.
She suffered a busted lip, swellings, cuts and bruises. After being thrown in the back of a patrol car, Lewis says police searched her house without consent, spoke to her children, put her phone on the dryer and left. When Lewis found her phone, she says police had removed her SD card.
Lewis says her husband was beaten so badly he had to have part of his ear stitched back on. HPD says Prevot tried to run after they attempted to pull him over -- he was taken into custody once he finally pulled over -- and suggests anyone who feels they've been treated unfairly by HPD can file a report.
It's all too similar to the Chad Holly case that created so much tension between HPD and the citizens of Houston. HPD has not responded to these specific allegations.
We don't know if Houston police actually caused the bruises, as the couple says, but these type of allegations certainly bruise their relationship with the community they serve.
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