DPD looking into complaint that officer left women on side of road

Dallas police are investigating an internal affairs complaint that an officer left three women on the side of a road after impounding their car as possible evidence in an aggravated robbery.

The incident happened late Friday night. Police thought the women had been involved in a felony or that someone driving the car they were in had committed a violent crime.

Chelsea Jones, her cousin, Patrice Hill, and friend, Alexis Richardson, say they’ve never had any run-ins with police until this past week.

“I had been taking my disabled cousin around grocery shopping all day because they got their checks early that day or whatever,” Jones recalled. “And my friend, Alexis, had told me to take her to go get a car.”

The trio traveled from Far North Dallas to Mega Motors along 175 in Pleasant Grove.

“As we were sitting in the car, a group of police officers came up told us to get out of the car and put our hands up above our heads and behind our back,” Jones said.

The women say officers told them that they had been involved in an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

“I was like, ‘No, sir. I've been taking my cousins everywhere we've got receipts shopping bags everything everywhere we’ve been. You can look at the video camera,’” Jones recalled. “And the dude was like, ‘No, you're lying! You're lying!’”

The car the trio was in was a silver Mitsubishi Galant that matched the description of a car used in a just-occurred convenience store robbery.

In her sworn statement to internal affairs, Jones told detectives one of the officers said he was “going to impound my car for evidence. So I asked...policeman to give us a ride home. He said okay and told us to get inside his squad car.”

But Jones claims the officers never took them home.

“He took us on down the road down the highway on the side of the freeway,” she said. “He looked back at all of us and was like, ‘Since y'all are lying, y'all about to get out right here because y'all not telling me the truth.’”

The women claim the officer put them out about 9 p.m. that night on the side of the road in an area they were unfamiliar with.

“I really was upset because it was my birthday and like they just harassed us basically,” Jones said.

In a statement, the Dallas Police Department said, “The Internal Affairs Division has received Ms. Jones' complaint and is in the process of gathering any supporting documentation such as DVR/Body Worn footage.  Once the packet is complete, a review will be conducted and a determination will be made on how to proceed with her complaint."

“You took us down the street and just dropped us off in the middle of nowhere,” Jones said. “Anything could have happened to us.”

Jones filed the internal affairs complaint but praised the officers she met with who took her statement for their kindness.

It may take days to a few weeks before all evidence is gathered witnesses vetted and a finding is made.