The House Judiciary Committee is calling for an investigation into the U.S. Marshals Service over the botched arrest of an Arizona grandmother who was mistaken for a nonviolent fugitive and arrested for assault with a gun, the Post reported.
House committee leaders have sent a letter to the Justice Department calling for an investigation into the arrest of Penny McCarthy, who spent the night in federal prison after investigators refused to provide identification during her terrifying March 5 ordeal. requested.
“The USMS is under arrest,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Andy Briggs (R-Ariz.) wrote Monday in a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz obtained by the Post. “It appears that Ms. McCarthy's constitutional rights were violated in the process.”
McCarthy, 66, was running errands outside her Phoenix-area home when a van sped up and unloaded a team of heavily armed U.S. marshals, who pointed an assault rifle at her and turned herself in. requested to do so.
body camera footage Get it at ABC15 A clearly confused Ms. McCarthy calmly asks investigators to not only give her a chance to identify herself, but also to provide basic identification to prove she is a government official. The entire argument was captured as they begged.
“You know we're the police,” the officer replied, and when McCarthy asked how they knew that, they threatened to knock her out with a Taser.
“If you turn around again, I’m going to shoot you with my taping gun,” the officer yelled at her.
McCarthy begged the officers to “tell me who I was,” but they refused to reveal the name of the person they were looking for unless she was handcuffed.
“After six agents surprised Ms. McCarthy in her home and yelled 'hands up,' she naturally asked if she had the right person. At that point, USMS agents asked her, 'Hands up!' He yelled, 'Turn around!' and threatened, 'I'm going to hit you,'” the Judiciary Committee letter states.
Officers ultimately revealed they were searching for a 70-year-old Oklahoma woman named Carol Ann Rozak. She was released on parole in 1999 after serving time for a series of non-violent crimes, and was convinced that McCarthy was her, impersonating the criminal. alias.
Ms. McCarthy said she could prove that she was not Roszak, but the marshals did not give her that chance and instead took her to jail for the night.
She was dismissed the next day after a judge found the prosecution's evidence (a Facebook photo of McCarthy that an Oklahoma probation officer thought might resemble Roszak, who is 25 years older) was insufficient. He was released.
The U.S. Marshals Service later claimed that a “glitch” in fingerprinting matched McCarthy and Roszak, and admitted about a month later that it was the wrong person, but ABC 15 investigated the case. It was later.
“While the USMS claims to be conducting a review of actions taken by its agents,13 internal reviews alone are not sufficient,” Rep. Jordan and Rep. Briggs wrote.
“We are extremely concerned about both the carelessness and excessive force of the USMS in this encounter. The USMS' failure to consider Ms. McCarthy's due process rights is deeply troubling and we continue to do so in the future.” “There is a need to monitor to ensure that abuses do not occur,” they added.
Federal marshals did not respond to requests for comment.
