Texas Woman BITTEN by FIRE ANTS During ARREST Claims Police Brutality. But What Does Body Camera Footage Show?

When the Santa Fe, Texas, a police officer stopped Taylor Rogers that summer morning, he told her she was turning illegally in an elementary school zone.

Their documented encounter on body camera footage points to that occurring roughly at 8:20 a.m. on Aug. 19, 2021.

Seven minutes later Rogers is face-down on the grass, hands bound behind her back, screaming, “Ants are on my face!” According to a modified complaint lodged in Houston’s Southern District of Texas District Court, police “flung and slammed” her “to the ground,” “hog tied,” and “buried [her] face in a pile of fire ants,” for three minutes.

“This is one of the worst cases of police brutality I have handled,” Randall Kallinen, her civil rights attorney, stated.

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Rogers says in the 28-page complaint that Officer Christian Carranza and Sgt. Ruben Espinoza “tortured” her and her first, fourth, and fourteen Amendment rights were violated, therefore entitizing her to damages.

Three independent body camera films covering important events in a case that has attracted national attention among other grave claims of police officers across the nation using excessive force.

At 8:23 a.m., a female officer named Officer Moore in the revised complaint reports Rogers once more driving in the incorrect direction.

Moore yells, swinging her arms and pursuing the car on foot, “Hey, hey, hey.”

She taps the automobile of Rogers as it speeds past.

“You left my car untouched!” Rogers shouts.

Espinoza claims he stopped the hunt by slamming his automobile against Rogers’.

The video then shows an officer telling Rogers to ground herself—a grassy location off the road.

“I am not even doing anything!” Rogers notes.

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Through much of the three-minute and thirty-four-second body camera film capturing her arrest, Rogers yells.

She says she suffers PTSD as she was detained “for no reason” before. (Her attorney emailed me that she had earlier resolved a claim against other Santa Fe officials.)

“Well, there was a reason here,” Moore notes, cuffs Rogers.

From the backseat, Rogers’ small boy is clearly sobbing.

Espinoza says to the lad, “It’s okay buddy, it’s okay.”

Rogers’s shackled arms are behind her back held by an officer.

“What was my response? Rogers calls out yells. “Please tell me what I did!”

“You turned away from a police officer,” Espinoza says.
A moment later, Rogers wonders, “Why is my face on the ground?” even if she asks the question by raising her face off the ground. “Please let me know that. Please let me know. Could you respond to the question?

The officer’s hands still tightly grip Rogers’ shackled arms. Rogers seemed to be repeatedly asking the question while momentarily laying her head on the ground.

As she moves her body on the grass, many cops circle her. One moment a male officer lifts her leg skyward.

Two minutes and fifty-two seconds into Espinoza’s arrest video, Rogers makes the first audible reference to fire ants.

“Ants are all on my face. ants are invading my face! Kindly help! She yells, then adds: “Ants are on my face. Kindly release yourself.

Officers can be seen flailing her off the ground around eighteen seconds later, trying to raise her.

We are attempting to get you moving. Calm down, a police officer advises. The cops try once more and raise her successfully at the three-minute and twenty-three-second mark.

Claiming that “no person should have to go through what happened to Taylor,” her attorney has set up a GoFundMe for legal bills.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown denied various allegations against the City of Santa Fe and Carranza in March 2024 but did not rule on the charge of excessive force. Brown turned down Espinoza’s move to dismiss the case in the memorandum decision and order.

Although Carranza’s lawyers turned down, they later in this year claimed in a court file that he had used “reasonable force” on Rogers.

Declaring the contact a “unfortunate incident,” Espinoza said in an interview that his police followed procedure in holding Rogers on the ground until she cooperated and that they did not see the fire ants.

Since then appointed Chief of Police of the Santa Fe Independent School District Police Department, Espinoza claims his department has received death threats linked to her claims.

Regarding the body camera footage he volunteered, he remarked, “We try to be open.” ” I have nothing to hide.”

Next year should see a jury trial.