An emotionally distraught Nicole Clinkscales, now a city judge, was told or reminded nine times by a Columbus police officer to sit in her car before she was arrested in 2009, according to a police recording released Wednesday.
Clinkscales, a local attorney, was fined $100 and ordered to pay $276.50 in court costs after she entered no contest pleas Feb. 23 to disorderly conduct and failure to obey a police officer. She was appointed a city judge in December while the misdemeanor case was still pending.
The recording from Patrolman Lance Luckey”s lapel microphone, obtained through an open records request by The Dispatch, showed Clinkscales yelling at Luckey as she was taken into custody June 23, 2009.
“I”m a mother trying to raise my child the best way I know how,” she told Luckey. “You understand that? You don”t know what I — You don”t know nothing about trying to raise a child in this environment! You know nothing! Nothing! Nothing!”
Neither Clinkscales nor her attorney, Nebra Porter, could be reached for comment this morning.
The arrest followed a confrontation between Clinkscales and one of her neighbors. Clinkscales said her son, Jalen Parker, had been bullied by several neighborhood children, who had allegedly taken several items from Clinkscales” house, she told The Dispatch in an exclusive interview Feb. 21.
She said she and her son went to house of the mother of one of the alleged bullies. There, an “out of control” Clinkscales began disciplining her child in the woman”s front yard, prompting the woman to call 911.
“(Clinkscales) started beating that boy right there with a belt upside the head,” according to the woman”s recorded interview at the scene. “He was screaming and hollering. I said, ”Ma”am, stop whipping him like that. What”s wrong?” (Then Clinkscales said) ”This is my child, you don”t tell me how to discipline my child.””
The woman later told Luckey, “She was so uncontrollable that I”m scared … Please protect me, y”all, please protect me.”
The woman left the scene in her vehicle, followed by Clinkscales, and flagged Luckey down in the 400 block of East Gaywood Avenue.
There, Luckey was confronted by a visibly upset Clinkscales, whom he did not recognize. He repeatedly told and reminded Clinkscales to sit in her car, which she did not do.
The recording settled several contradictions between Luckey”s and Clinkscales” versions of the arrest.
She had earlier claimed that Luckey had said “something like, ”Shut up and get in your car,”” but the recording only recorded him saying to sit in her car.
She also said the situation was “non-volatile, non-hostile.”
But before she was arrested, she told Luckey that she “knew her rights,” that he was not going to “harass” her and that she had done “nothing wrong,” according to the recording.
“I”m not breaking any law,” she is recorded telling him. “Please call the mayor (Robert Smith), I just left him. Please call your chief (Joseph St. John), I”ve got his number in my cell phone.”
When Luckey told her she was under arrest for failure to obey a police officer, he told her, “You”re an attorney, you ought to know that.”
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