U.S. & World

YONKERS, N.Y. (CBS) ― Back on Jan. 5, Naima Yancey said an officer stopped her when she passed a stop sign on the corner near her house, and wrote her a ticket. She didn't think she had run through the sign without stopping, but figured, that's the way it goes sometimes.

Back at her house, after using the automatic garage door opener to get in, the 23-year-old went through the garage and to the door leading to the basement inside, and the stairs to the rest of the house above. By that door, there is also a button that closes the garage door after you get in, and she pressed it. She was startled to see that the officer who had written the ticket had followed her, and set off the electric eye that acts as a safety, sending the door back up to the open position.

"He came in, and I said, 'this is private property. You're trespassing," she said.

She spoke loud, so that her boyfriend, Cecil Jenkins, 24, would hear.

"I came down the stairs, and saw the officer, and said, 'What's the problem?'" Jenkins said.

"When he sees Cecil, he calls someone on his cell phone -- more officers, I think. I went to the stairs to run up," Naima continues, "and the officer grabs me by the back of my clothing, and hits me across my face, and pulls both of us back to the garage. He makes Cecil get down on the floor."

Added Jenkins: "He whips Naima to the floor, and knees her in the back, and keeps hitting her. Calling her expletives."

Yancey has never been in trouble, and both young people are shocked. She is also in pain from a beating so bad, her lawyers had her moved the next day from the hospital where the police had taken her to another hospital, and immediately, took pictures to document the bruises.

Ironically, Yancey was the recipient of a scholarship from the City of Yonkers that helped pay her college costs. She used that start to graduate from King College in Pennsylvania with a minor in criminal justice. She is now in social work but hopes to continue her education to become certified as a teacher to follow in the footsteps of her mother, a social worker, and her father, a teacher.

It happened that soon after the beating, Naima's mother, Nancy Yancey, returned to their house. Alarmed when she saw all the police, she was told two people have been arrested. When she learned it was Naima, "I tell them, 'that's my daughter! That's my daughter!' And then I hear this tapping inside a police car. It's her! And she's saying, 'They beat me!'"

The officers waited for a female officer to arrive to frisk Naima Yancey.

"When they take her out of the car, it's the first time I see the bruises on her arm," her mother said. "My daughter tells them, 'I've already been searched.' "

The mother said the arresting officer, Darren Moran, "goes up to the female officer and my daughter, who's in handcuffs, and regarding her comment about having been searched, said, 'Oh! We have a little lawyer in the house! Let's see how tight these handcuffs are!' And proceeds to twist my daughter's hands! She screams! 'Ma!'"

The woman was shaking while she described the incident.

"He boasted to his colleagues that he whipped my daughter!" Nancy Yancey said. "He demonstrates how he whipped my daughter! Because my daughter is a college-graduate, educated-female, who knows her rights! He could not see that!"

The family showed WCBS-TV about five more tickets Officer Moran later wrote, accusing the young woman of everything from running a second stop sign to obstructing a governmental inquiry.

All this may wind up going to court in a lawsuit against the City of Yonkers. The Yancey family already has attorneys Luis Colon, Annette Rodriguez Soriano and Ricardo Aguirre in their corner.

"Any talk about a future lawsuit is premature," Aguirre said. "Right now, we want to get these charges dismissed. This young woman did nothing. And she wants to be a teacher. We want to keep her record clean."

A reasonable person would have to think there is another side here. That something, perhaps, in the initial stop sign encounter set the officer off. But the point at which the officer allegedly entered the house and then, allegedly, beat her are two points that beg for some kind of answer.

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