New Orleans Police arrested five people Saturday night after a brawl on Bourbon Street left two of their own beaten and bruised and a suspect shocked with a stun gun.
An arrest warrant indicates police believe Patriceia Casher, 26, started the scuffle outside The Swamp bar in the 500 block of Bourbon after 11 p.m. Saturday night.
Witnesses said Casher had been thrown out of the bar, and she began causing a disturbance on the street. She was with a group of nearly 20 tourists from Mississippi and surrounding states at the time.
New Orleans Police Officer Lee Berry and Officer Matthew McKoan tried to break up the ruckus, but the warrant says Casher started punching Berry after he had been knocked to the ground.
Surveillance footage from a street blanketed by both public and private cameras captured the incident in high-definition detail.
That video shows a man police identified as Pascagoula, MS resident, Kyle Stallworth, 27, trying to hit Officer Berry when he was trying to place Casher in handcuffs.
According to court documents, a third Man, David Wilson, 26, began pushing Officer McKoan as he tried to help Berry arrest Casher. Police allege Wilson head-butted Officer McKoan in the struggle.
A third police officer arrived at the scene and ordered Wilson to stop. When police say he refused and tried to flee, they shocked him with a stun gun. That confrontation was not in the video released by police Wednesday.
Trumaine Holmes, 31, was also arrested on a charge of battery on a police officer in the brawl.
Video taken from nearby Razoo nightclub on Bourbon street clearly shows a man identified by police as Alejandro Ford, 23, waving a gun around during the incident. The video shows someone telling a police officer about the gun, then the officer calmly approaches Ford, securing the loaded weapon and making the arrest.
"After being kicked, after being head-butted, thrown against the ground and becoming aware that a weapon was drawn in this confrontation, these officers still had the presence of mind to utilize their training to a positive end," said NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison in a news conference about the incident Wednesday.
Wilson was taken to University Hospital for an evaluation because he was tasered before being booked into Orleans Parish Prison. One of the two police officers was hospitalized briefly as well, as he injured his hip. Both cops returned to duty the following night, police say.
Harrison said de-escalation training became a central focus of NOPD training in 2016 and Saturday was a textbook example of it being used effectively.
"This is what Constitutional policing looks like in the 21st century," Harrison said.