Reprinted from Lancaster Independent Press
Her civil rights were violated, her human rights were violated, her body was violated and her security and inner peace were forever ruined.
Faith Mugwe, 22, threw a 55th birthday party for a friend in her apartment on Saturday, July 12. There was a designated driver to take party guests home.
The police say they received a loud music complaint and knocked on her door.
Faith Mugwe was drunk. No one disputes that. She was having a party in her home. The police were excessively rude. Mugwe stepped several feet out her front door to talk to them.
The discussion ended with Mugwe telling the police something to the effect of “Get the fuck out,” making a hand gesture, and turning her back to the police to re-enter her home and turn down the music.
The two New Holland Police Officers tackled her and threw her on the ground. They put her in handcuffs. They never told her she was being arrested.
There are at least three witnesses to the initial stage of this horrendous assault. The police then dragged Mugwe around the corner to their car where no one could see them. Mugwe was maced twice, taken to the police station, fainted, put in an ambulance, tasered on her breast and ultimately ended up in the Ephrata Community Hospital were she was subjected to an involuntary urinary catheterization with one of the male police officers standing in the room.
She was then taken before a District Justice and arraigned on five criminal charges – aggravated assault, resisting arrest, public drunkenness and two counts of disorderly conduct. Her bail was set at $25,000 and she spent two days in the Lancaster County Prison.
It is the most horrific scenario anyone could possibly imagine: A hard working, happy, twenty-two-year old who has never been in trouble with the law, holding a birthday party for a friend – and in an instant, her life is turned upside down, her body is violated and scarred, her rights are violated and her inner peace and security destroyed.
Faith Mugwe is black. The two New Holland Police Officers, Christopher Clingan and Wendell Metzler, are white.
