JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville family is speaking out after they say their loved one was aggressively taken to the ground and badly injured during an arrest.
Kim Cobb, 54, was arrested during a traffic stop in August and accused of possession of a controlled substance.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said that as officers were trying to detain Cobb, she resisted, which led them to take her to the ground.
There is body camera footage of the arrest but JSO said it could not release it now because it is under investigation.
The family said Cobb has made several appearances in court but to their knowledge, the judge has not seen the footage.
According to Cobb’s arrest report, the officer who pulled her over smelled marijuana coming from the car, so he asked for her and the driver to exit the car.
When they did, the officer asked them a few questions before searching the car.
Officers said that during the search, they found a black tube inside Cobb’s purse that had a small glass container with an unknown white powdery substance in it.
The report said officers believed it to be an illegal narcotic so they went to arrest Cobb.
Officers said that when they tried to arrest Cobb, she started to tense her arms and pulled away, so they took her to the ground, which caused a cut to her eyebrow.
Cobb’s daughter-in-law, Lacher Groomes, said it was more than just a cut.
“She actually had stitches on her orbit, stitches to her stomach, something to her face, two black eyes, three missing teeth,” Groomes said.
She said the incident has been an emotional rollercoaster for their family.
“We actually have the [body-camera] footage so we can actually see the truth. There was nothing done. She didn’t do...she wasn’t irate. She didn’t curse. She didn’t scream. She wasn’t disrespectful. And they just basically just slammed (her) to the ground and they caused all this damage,” Groomes said. “She was just saying, just the experience and everything that she seen and we been seeing on the news for years. She thought she was going to die the way they attacked her and slammed her down. She was completely scared. She didn’t want to speak anymore.”
JSO said the “incident is currently under administrative review by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Internal Affairs Unit, and as such, we are unable to comment further on this incident.”
The family said they are shedding light on Cobbs’s case because they want the officers to be held accountable.