2 months ago
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By MICHAEL BIESECKER, JAIMIE DING, CHRISTINE FERNANDO, CLAIRE RUSH and RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal agent described her wounds as “boo-boos.”
Nevertheless, the Department of Justice aggressively pursued the alleged perpetrator. They jailed Sidney Lori Reid on a charge of felony assault, accusing her of injuring the agent during a July protest of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Washington, D.C.
When grand jurors thrice declined to indict the 44-year-old on the felony, prosecutors tried her on a misdemeanor.
Body camera footage played at trial revealed that Reid had not intentionally struck the agent. Instead, the agent had scratched her hand on a wall while assisting another agent who had shoved Reid and told her to “shut the f—- up” and “mind her own business.”
It took jurors less than two hours to acquit the animal hospital worker.
“It seemed like my life was just going to be taken away from me,” said Reid, who spent two days in jail and worried she would lose her new job and apartment. “It broke my heart because this is supposed to be a good and fair country and I did not see anything surrounding my case that was good or fair at all for anybody.”
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