A custody listening to in Ada, Oklahoma, final month took a flip for the surprising — and the extremely loud — after an legal professional who recognized himself as transgender was arrested and dragged from the courtroom the place he had appeared to signify his shopper simply minutes earlier than.
The change occurred throughout a custody listening to in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, some 90 minutes southeast of Oklahoma Metropolis. The legal professional, Rob Hopkins, was jailed for contempt after sparring repeatedly with the choose, Lori Jackson, throughout an in any other case unremarkable continuing.
Surveillance footage, audio, and physique digicam footage reviewed by Fox Information Digital has shed new mild on the extraordinary confrontation, through which Hopkins will be seen actively resisting arrest by bailiffs. At one level, Hopkins will be seen splaying his physique throughout the choose’s bench, leading to a pile of paperwork being swept off its finely polished wooden floor.
“You’re HURTING ME!” Hopkins bellowed, as bystanders appeared on. “I can’t BREATHE!” he shrieked once more, louder.
Attendees within the courtroom might be seen wanting on quietly as Hopkins twisted, turned, and contorted his physique to evade {the handcuffs} that officers used to restrain him.
“I felt very threatened by this particular person,” one particular person might be heard telling the choose.
The meltdown in query, and the arrest, occurred throughout a custody listening to punctuated by repeated interruptions from Hopkins and warnings from Jackson that he could be held in contempt.
Hopkins then urged she was discriminating in opposition to him for his transgender standing, escalating tensions contained in the courtroom.
“It’s as a result of I’m a transgender legal professional training all around the state,” Hopkins leveled sharply, to which Jackson shot again: “I don’t know what you might be.”
“I don’t know you from Adam,” Jackson stated later, describing his conduct as “totally inappropriate.”
Shortly after, bailiffs entered the courtroom, prompting the listening to to descend into full chaos.
“Do NOT HURT ME!” Hopkins yelled on the officers.
“I’m being thrown down!” he bellowed, as he threw himself on the bench earlier than the officers finally compelled him onto the ground.
Extra officers streamed in to assist restrain Hopkins, whose uproarious exclamations had, at that time, drawn a crowd — not solely within the courtroom, but additionally within the hallways surrounding it, because the physique digicam footage exhibits.
“Get a feminine officer, now!” Hopkins demanded. “Name 911!” he shrieked, because the officers tried to put him in handcuffs.
“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” he declared.
From the ground of the courtroom, Hopkins accused the officers of “throwing his glasses” onto the ground — a declare that surveillance footage reviewed by Fox Information Digital seems to refute — and ordered the officers to put them again on his face.
“Put them on my face,” Hopkins demanded repeatedly, because the officers tried to put Hopkins right into a seated place and escort him from the courtroom. “PUT THEM ON MY FACE!” Hopkins screamed as soon as extra, the amount and urgency unchanged from his request for emergency companies simply seconds earlier than.
Hopkins stated he has since shuttered his regulation agency following the contempt cost and fallout from the listening to.
He didn’t reply to Fox Information Digital’s requests for remark relating to both the proceedings in query or the rationale for his agency’s closure.
