By Jan Ransom
The Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — The cousin of a West Philadelphia man hit in the head with nightsticks by police in a video posted on YouTube last month was taken to the hospital last night after a confrontation with cops inside her grandfather’s home.
Tanya Yates, 26, a cousin of Askia Sabur, got into an argument with officers whom the family say burst into their home on Conestoga Street near Media shortly before 8 p.m., after telling them they were seeking two gunman involved in a nearby shooting.
A police source said last night that they were investigating a shooting in the neighborhood and that officers saw a man matching the description of a shooter run into the house.
Police said the family was hostile toward the officers once they got in the house. A police source said Yates punched a female officer. She was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer.
Yates’ family said she was repeatedly hit her on the head by a male officer and in the lower body by a female officer. The family also said that police struck her with the handle of a Taser.
“They grabbed me, they were holding me back,” said Paul Balmer, the 82-year-old grandfather of both Yates and Sabur. “I was yelling ‘stop it, stop it.’”
A police source said that Yates was hostile toward the officers.
“Cops don’t go around looking to beat you up,” said the police source. “They go into the house trying to solve a problem.”
The family said police stormed upstairs searching for Yates’ brother Odell Balmer, whom they allegedly suspected was the shooter. Unlike the description given by police, Odell had a pink sweater not a red shirt. No gun was found in the home.
Odell said officers took him a few blocks down to a witness of the shooting, but Odell was released when the witness did not identify him.
The police source said that a male officer who had been at the scene had blood on his shirt that wasn’t his own and that the female officer’s finger was bleeding.
On a video on YouTube, cops are seen whacking Sabur in the head outside a Chinese restaurant on Sept. 3. Sabur was left with a fractured left arm, a head gash and a sore back. He was charged with assaulting two officers.
Copyright 2010 Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC