Wheeling police release video of siblings' arrests amid probe
Wheeling police have released three videos related to a tussle between officers and siblings amid an internal probe into their arrests and police conduct.
Deputy Police Chief Todd Wolff said Friday the department is in the preliminary stages of an investigation expected to take at least two weeks into complaints made by the family in a Telemundo television interview, which included footage from an amateur video of the encounter.
While that 3-minute handheld video, now shared almost 600 times on Facebook, has audio, a 35-minute silent video from a village-owned surveillance camera offers another angle of the June 6 arrests of Christian Ruiz, 19, and his sister, Ashley Rodriguez, 21, who both face misdemeanor charges. The video can be viewed in its entirety on dailyherald.com.
The recording also shows what brought police to their apartment complex on the 70 block of North Wolf Road: a confrontation between a woman and a man in a group including Ruiz. A 911 caller had reported a street fight, although the tape shows nothing physical.
At the video's 6:45 mark, the woman, wearing a pink jacket, approaches the man and apparently exchanges words by the complex's parking lot. Another man, seen earlier with the woman, holds her back, and the two later walk away.
The remaining group disperses shortly before the first police officer arrives roughly 13 minutes into the video.
Ruiz keeps his hands on a car in the lot, while the officer takes another person into custody (he was later released).
The skirmish with police and Ruiz and Rodriguez starts at about 16:25.
Its begins with a confrontation between officers and Rodriguez. Then her brother takes his hands off the car and moves toward them.
Police pull him away, off camera, while an officer restrains Rodriguez on the ground and then against the car.
Two other videos that were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request were recorded by cameras in police vehicles but don't show the arrests. Cameras in other squad cars at the scene stopped recording once officers flipped the flashing lights off, a common procedure, police said.
Police said in a court document that Rodriguez refused to walk away from her brother despite police orders and interfered with their investigation. After she was told she was under arrest, she pulled her arm away from the sergeant and resisted his efforts to handcuff her, according to the document. She was charged with two counts of obstructing a police officer.
Ruiz faces aggravated assault and obstructing charges after police said he charged toward another officer, putting her in "reasonable apprehension of receiving a battery," the documents state. He also refused to put his hands behind his back while struggling on the ground with police, they allege.
Wolff, the deputy chief, said no one has made a formal complaint with the department. He wouldn't comment on its internal investigation.
The mother, who complained to Telemundo in Spanish that "they grabbed my daughter ... like an animal," couldn't be reached Friday.