Action Demanded After Police Gas Handcuffed Black Woman

Black leaders here heard an appeal for united action Tuesday after the broadcast of a police videotape in which three white suburban officers were shown gassing a handcuffed black woman inside a jail cell.

The tape, aired on television Monday night, showed police officers in suburban Lancaster, Texas, spraying a can of pepper gas into a holding cell where they had just pushed Cynthia Gillespie, a 30-year-old mother and part-time student who had been arrested for using abusive language at a video store.

On the tape, Gillespie is seen making a slight gesture of resistance. She can be seen twisting her wrists, handcuffed behind her back, as if to break an officer’s grip. The officer is clutching the handcuffs and using them to steer her into the room.

It is not possible to see on the tape what happened in the seconds after she was placed in the holding cell. The tape shows one of three police officers reaching calmly into the room and apparently spraying gas from a can about the size of a typical hair-spray container. A Lancaster city spokesman said Tuesday the gas used was pepper gas.

Two separate police videotapes were made, one at the scene of the arrest by a camera in the police car and the second by a surveillance camera at police headquarters.