WADDINGTON — An Ogdensburg woman, just days from earning a degree in law enforcement leadership from SUNY Canton, said she found herself pushed to the ground and shocked with a stun gun by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on Thursday after refusing to comply with their orders.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection acknowledged the incident and said it is investigating.
The altercation unfolded when agents stopped 21-year-old Jessica A. Cooke at about 3:30 p.m. on Route 37, just north of The Kitchen at Iroquois Farm restaurant, during a routine checkpoint, she said.
However, the stop went terribly wrong.
In a video posted to Ms. Cooke’s Facebook page, a male and a female agent are seen telling Ms. Cooke she was being detained for a K-9 unit to arrive and inspect the trunk of her car. Agents said they were detaining her because she appeared nervous.
The male agent, who identified himself as a supervisor, told her she was free to go, but said she would have to walk because her car was being detained while they awaited the K-9 unit’s arrival.
The male agent, after a verbal exchange with Ms. Cooke, said he would spike the tires of her car if she attempted to take it.
“You can leave, but your car is not going anywhere,” the supervising agent told Ms. Cooke in the video, telling her she needed to get back into her car.
Ms. Cooke refused.
“All right, I’m going to tell you one more time and then I am going to move you over there, you got it?” he said.
Ms. Cooke told the supervising agent she would sue him if he touched her.
“Go for it; move over there now,” he said.
As the video becomes violently shaky, Ms. Cooke can be heard repeating, “Sir, sir ….”
Then Ms. Cooke began screaming.
Her phone fell to the ground, recording nothing but sky on video as the agents can be heard repeating, “Get on your stomach.”
Ms. Cooke told the Times on Friday that the supervising agent pushed her against her car and to the ground while the female agent used a stun gun, shooting her in the lower back to subdue her, she said.
“She said stop resisting or I would get tased again,” Ms. Cooke said Friday.
Ms. Cooke, who exhibited visible scrapes and bruises on her upper back, foot, hands and elbows on Friday, said she was handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car where she waited for an hour for a K-9 unit to arrive.
During an exterior inspection of her vehicle by the unit, nothing was found, Ms. Cooke said. She said agents then opened the car doors, got her keys and opened the trunk.
Again, nothing was found, Ms. Cooke said, adding that agents did a second search of the vehicle with the K-9 unit, but found nothing.
Agents locked her car and delivered her keys and her dog, which was in the car during the exchange, to her parents’ house in Ogdensburg, she said.
Ms. Cooke said she was placed in a holding cell at the U.S. Border Patrol station in Ogdensburg for several hours. Eventually, a St. Lawrence County sheriff’s deputy drove her home, she said.
Shelbe Benson-Fuller, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, issued the following statement about the incident Friday:
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is investigating a report from the U.S. Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector about an altercation between an individual and two Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint on Thursday, May 7. The altercation followed a brief verbal exchange between the individual and the two agents regarding their intent to inspect the vehicle.”
The Border Patrol station in Ogdensburg is under the supervision of the Border Patrol sector in Swanton, Vt.
No charges have been filed and Ms. Cooke said she never was read her Miranda rights, adding she was told by agents they were trying to decide whether to file state or federal charges of assaulting an officer.
“They are trying to say that I put my hands on him first,” Ms. Cooke said. “That’s stupid; I had both hands on my phone, recording.”
As an Ogdensburg resident, Ms. Cooke said she has passed through these kinds of checkpoints countless times, without incident.
On Thursday, Ms. Cooke said she was en route to her boyfriend’s house on Franklin Street in Ogdensburg from Butch’s Auto, in Norfolk, and felt as though her rights had been violated. She said she plans to file a lawsuit.
“If I can take it to Supreme Court, I will take it to Supreme Court. I should never have been detained,” Ms. Cooke said, adding that she has already gone through the first phase of physical training in the entrance stages of applying to be a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent.
“I still want to pursue the field of law enforcement,” Ms. Cooke said. “Of course, I second-guess it, but it takes something like this and someone like me to change it.”
