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Baltimore County Couple Sues Police Department After Traumatizing Encounter

BALTIMORE (WJZ) --  On April 8, James Como and Wanda Redd attended a family gathering in the Overlea neighborhood of Baltimore County.

As the couple walked to their car, they were stopped by two police officers in the parking lot.
According to Baltimore County Police, they were called to the area at around 1:45 a.m. for reports of a public disturbance and reports of a couple fighting.
"We weren't fighting, I didn't have no bruises, he didn't have no bruises, he didn't have anything, nothing was wrong with us," said Wanda Redd in an interview with WJZ Tuesday.
The officers questioned Redd and Como and left. The couple said they then got into their car and roughly ten minutes later, police came back, this time with another officer.
"That's when I decided to pull my phone out and started recording, cuz I didn't like the energy," said Como.
In the video, you can hear one officer asking Wanda to see her ID.
"For what?" Wanda replied.
According to Baltimore County Police, police received a second call. Wanda tells the officers, "We not doing anything, sir."
Then, Como claims, officers went "into attack mode."
Attorney Governor E. Jackson, III, who represents Redd and Como, said it's at this point his clients' rights begin to get violated "and quite frankly it snowballed from there."
In the video, an one officer can be seen reaching his arm inside Redd's window and, she pulls his hand away, she claims he hit her.
"Stop, look he's hit me," Redd said.
Moments later, another officer breaks open the window on Como's side.
"From that moment, I thought I was gonna die," said Redd.
Police arrested Redd and Como.
According to charging documents, Como was charged with assaulting Redd, and Redd was charged with failing to obey and disturbing the peace.
"I feel humiliated. Like I asked over and over, 'what did I do? Like, what did I do?'... the police officers, they're supposed to be here to help and serve us. Why am I being hit on?" Redd asked.
"There was no requirement for them to produce identification when they're not engaged in any illegal activity," Jackson, the couple's attorney, added.
Now, the couple is suing the three police officers who surrounded their car that night, and their sergeant, for $25 million in damages, "because of the reckless malicious nature of the officers who we have sued individually and in their official capacity," Jackson said.
The Baltimore County Police Department tells WJZ this incident remains under administrative review and the arrests have been reviewed by the State's Attorney's Office.
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