WMPD handles tough situation with grieving mother

Patrol of break-in hot spot turns into altercation with out-of-town woman

ralphhardin@gmail.com No one ever said police work was easy, and oftentimes, a situation that seems routine can escalate in seconds, even when no crime has been committed.

Such was the case recently when Shwanda Brookshire was discussing funeral arrangements for her daughter with the girl’s father when West Memphis police approached her while patrolling an area that has been targeted by burglars as of late.

According to the WMPD, they have stepped up their presence in and around the parking lot of the La Quinta Inn in West Memphis, where a patrolman stopped the woman as they worked their way through the lot Sunday night.

Brookshire walking in the hotel parking lot having a telephone conversation with the father of her daughter while wearing a hoodie. The officer stopped her and asked for her name. When she did not identify herself, the situation escalated. When they came across her in the parking lot of the hotel where she was staying.

According to a release from the West Memphis police, she was questioned simply “to make sure she was staying at the hotel and that she was not on the parking lot for nefarious reasons.”

While it was later learned that Brookshire had recently lost a child and that may have played a role in her state of mind, at that point in the conversation, she, according to the release, “demanded that they turn on their camera,” which she was then told was already recording.

The situation continued to escalate, as officers attempted to learn her identity and verify that she was a guest at the hotel.

However, “they asked for her identification and she cursed at the officers and told them it was in the hotel,” according to the release. She then called a family member on her cell phone and claimed the police “were trying to arrest her,” at which time, the officers assured Brookshire they were not trying to arrest her.

After repeated attempts to get her to “quit yelling” and “stop screaming” in the parking lot, officers attempted to handcuff her “to place her inside the patrol unit in another attempt to calm her down,” the release explains.

The altercation eventually drew the attention of some of Brookshire’s family members who were inside the hotel. At that point, she was handcuffed and placed in a patrol car while the officers, joined by a supervisor who arrived on the scene, spoke with the family. It was then that the recent tragic death of Brookshire’s daughter was discovered.

A day earlier, Brookshire had lost her 4-year-old daughter, Nia Brookshire, while trying to do a good deed. A story in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette said that according to St.

Francis County Coroner Miles Kimble Brookshire, was driving on I-40 Saturday when she noticed a gas can attached to another SUV was leaking all over the road.

“The mother pulled her Jeep Compass onto the shoulder around 7:20 a.m.

to try to flag down the other car,” said the report.

“According to state police, the vehicle was only partially in the inside shoulder, and the driver of the SUV, a GMC Savana, failed to see her Jeep and struck it.”

The wreck killed Nia and injured another minor. The driver of the Savana was also injured, according to state police.

The family had been traveling from Ohio to Texas when Nia was killed on Saturday, so they remained in West Memphis to make funeral arrangements as other family members made their way to Arkansas.

Ultimately, the patrol lieutenant on the scene made the decision to release Brookshire at the scene taking into account “the tragic death that the family was dealing with.”

The West Memphis Police Department issued a press release including a link on YouTube of the incident, but it was later taken down after a flurry of racially- charged and profanity- laden comments. The statement did include the following: “Although the interaction between the officers and [Brookshire] takes place off of the patrol camera’s view, the audio can still be heard. The hotel camera captured the interaction and has been uploaded to the West Memphis Police Department’s YouTube channel. The West Memphis Police Department would like to express our condolences for this family’s loss. It is an extremely tragic situation and we understand the stress that this family is dealing with. Our officers were simply trying to patrol this parking lot, at the request of management, in an attempt to protect the property of the people as they traveled through our area. This is an unfortunate event that could have easily been prevented.”

Arkansas is one of 26 states with a “Stop and Identify” or “Stop & ID” statute, which are statutory laws in the U.S. that authorize police to legally demand the identity of someone whom they have reasonable suspicion that they are engaged or about to engage in criminal activity. Under these laws, people who refuse to show identification under these circumstances can be arrested.