Wayne sheriff defends deputy accused of punching woman at county fair

Although the incident remains under investigation by the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, Pierce released a four-and-a-half-minute video showing different angles of the encounter that went beyond what was seen in a cellphone video posted on Facebook over the weekend.

“Law enforcement is always placed in a potentially losing situation when an individual chooses to be noncompliant and forces the officer to go hands-on," the sheriff said.

Tziah Kelly, 18, said she got in the middle while deputies were trying to break up a scuffle involving her 16-year-old brother near the fair entrance. As she was being led out, she said she pulled away from a deputy, prompting him to grab her by her jacket and take a swing at her.

Kelly then took a couple of swings at the deputy as one of her friends and another deputy rushed over to try to de-escalate the situation.

"He yanked me up, and then he was hitting me, but I never touched the back of his head, and he said I hit the back of his head," Kelly said Sunday.

During a Thursday afternoon news conference, Deputy Mike Smith narrated the longer video, which captured by security cameras at the county fairgrounds in Dudley and included footage of a brawl earlier that night that sent a man to the hospital.

Smith noted how deputies initially responded to an incident that included Kelly's brother and that he willingly complied with their efforts to escort him out. Kelly then started grabbing at one of the deputies, Smith said, prompting the deputy to take hold of her to escort her out as well.

Kelly repeatedly tried to pull away from the deputy and even pulled his bullet-proof vest loose and knocked off his radio, Smith said. The deputy responded with an "open-hand technique," coming around the back of her head to grab her by the collar, he said.

“It was a tugging match between the two," Smith said.

Kelly's brother eventually had to restrain her and help escort her out, Smith said, adding that Kelly tried a few times to re-enter through an exit gate.

Kelly was later charged with resisting arrest, second-degree trespassing and assault on government official. Smith said the arrest occurred in the fairgrounds parking lot when she was on the back of a deputy.

Smith said the deputy tried to de-escalate the situation several times before the scuffle and noted that his effort to grab Kelly by the collar is a standard part of law enforcement training.

The deputy, whose name hasn't been released, remains on administrative duty pending the outcome of the internal investigation, Pierce said.

He apologized for the encounter but said his deputies need to enforce the law. He also bemoaned a lack of respect for law enforcement among today's youth and the snap judgments people made after the cellphone video about the incident was posted to Facebook.

"We, as a society, have set the bar so low for what we expect from our youth today," Pierce said. "Social media has become the platform to pass judgment before all the facts can be collected and presented."