The young mom who was slugged by a Jersey shore cop admitted she had “a little attitude” before the beach brawl – but isn’t a “bad person.”
Emily Weinman broke her silence for the first time since the Memorial Day weekend scuffle to defend her actions that resulted in a slew of charges, including aggravated assault.
“In my eyes, I’m not a criminal. I’m not a bad person,” Weinman told CBS News in an interview out Wednesday.
“They think that because they are cops they can get away with it. And that’s not the case. That’s not right at all.”
The 20-year-old, who has an 18-month-old daughter, said there were unopened containers of alcohol around her on the beach in Wildwood, but that she wasn’t drinking.
After the cops approached, Weinman willingly blew two Breathalyzer tests, which both came back negative.
“I ask them, ‘Do you guys have anything better to do?’ There’s so much stuff going on and you’re trying to stop people for underage drinking and you see I didn’t drink,” Weinman said. “He was like, ‘That’s it. I was going to let you go, but now I’m going to write you up.'”
Then, chaos erupted.
Bodycam footage shows Weinman – who copped to having “a little attitude” that day – walking away and snapping at the officer, “Don’t touch me” before he tells her, “Alright, you’re about to get dropped.”
“He hadn’t told her that she had committed any crime. He hadn’t told her ‘I’m going to issue you a summons,'” said Weinman’s attorney, Stephen Dicht. “He hadn’t told her any of those things. And then he says, ‘Oh, you’re about to get dropped.’”
The disturbing footage then shows the cop on top of her, hitting her repeatedly in the head.
“The police are saying you resisted. So why not just stop and argue with them in court later?” CBS News’ David Begnaud asked Weinman.
Dicht chimed in, “It’s impossible to answer that question, really … because it’s all happening in the moment.”
Weinman was charged with two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer, aggravated assault for spitting at a police officer, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and being a minor in possession of alcohol.
But Weinman claims she spit because she got sand in her mouth when she was tackled.
“So when they smashed my head into the ground, I had all this sand in my mouth … when they got me on my stomach, I turned around to go spit it out,” she said.
She’s currently on probation for four years for misdemeanor charges of simple assault and reckless endangerment related to a 2016 incident.
The cops, meanwhile, won’t face criminal charges, the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office announced Tuesday.
Asked whether she thought she owed the police an apology, Weinman answered, “Honestly, no I don’t. I’m very sorry that the situation happened, but I don’t owe them an apology at all.”
