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OFF THE WIRE
Officer Charged For Assaulting Random Female Pedestrian, Knocking Her Teeth Out
July 19, 2013 by Ben Bullard
PHOTOS.COM
A Texas police officer has been jailed after a police affidavit
revealed he allegedly battered, without provocation, an innocent female
pedestrian who happened to be walking near the scene of an unrelated
late-night traffic stop.
The affidavit, written by another
police officer who reviewed documentation of the May 29 incident,
alleges Cpl. James Palermo of the San Marcos Police Department had
stopped a car at about 1 a.m. for driving the wrong way on a one-way
street. As he questioned the driver, he noticed the pedestrian — whom
the affidavit alleges didn’t look at or talk to either Palermo or the
stopped motorist and didn’t exhibit any “suspicious” behavior — and
called her over to the scene, where he began questioning her about
walking near the scene.
The woman, 22-year-old Texas State
University student Alexis Alpha, told Palermo she didn’t believe she had
done anything wrong. Their interaction became more acrimonious when she
couldn’t immediately produce the identification Palermo allegedly had
demanded.
As the officer dialed up the verbal heat, the victim
allegedly advised him to conduct traffic stops elsewhere if he didn’t
like where she was walking, called him a “dick” and observed that he
appeared to simply be exorcising his pre-existing bad mood on her.
She had no idea.
Palermo allegedly responded by grabbing her, pushing her against the
stopped motorist’s Toyota Prius, and then slamming her to the concrete,
where he sat on her back. He allegedly cuffed her and placed her in his
patrol vehicle, telling her she was being arrested for obstruction.
The assault knocked out two of Alpha’s teeth. Palermo took her to
Central Texas Medical Center, where medical staff advised her she also
had sustained a concussion and would need follow-up care, which could
involve multiple surgeries. So Palermo took Alpha to the jail and
slapped on two more charges: resisting arrest and public intoxication.
Alpha never filed a complaint over her assault. In fact, the police
themselves discovered Palermo’s attack after reviewing footage from his
patrol car’s dashboard video camera. The department obtained warrants
for his arrest following an internal investigation and booked him into
the Hays County Law Enforcement Center on July 16 for aggravated assault
with serious bodily injury by a public servant — a first-degree felony
that carries a possible maximum sentence of life in prison. He had been
on paid administrative leave since the internal investigation had begun
in early June, and is now on indefinite unpaid leave as the legal
process unfolds.
San Marcos Police Chief Howard E. Williams told the San Marcos Mercury: