Now I have all the details. Here's the full piece:

---

**Blue Brutality: Teen Girl Slammed And Bloodied By San Bernardino Police During Arrest, Viral Video Sparks Outrage**

A 110-pound Black teenager was body-slammed face-first onto concrete by a San Bernardino police officer while she was handcuffed and unable to break her fall, according to a federal lawsuit filed in April 2026. Erin Marie Cowser, who was 17 years old at the time of the May 21, 2025 incident, suffered a concussion, traumatic brain injury, loss of consciousness and memory, a deep open gash under her chin, and facial abrasions. The officer responsible, Jackson Tubbs, then told the bleeding, barely conscious girl that she "fell." His partner, Officer Cynthia Guillen, stood by and said nothing. Both officers' body-worn cameras were rolling the entire time.

Cowser had been inside a Food 4 Less grocery store on Rialto Avenue in San Bernardino with friends when a separate group of teenagers attacked her. A security guard broke up the fight by pepper-spraying the aggressors, and the groups scattered before police ever arrived on the scene. Cowser was standing outside the store talking with a friend when Tubbs approached her from behind, grabbed her by her SpongeBob SquarePants backpack without a word, and began handcuffing her. He never told her she was under arrest. He never gave her a command to comply. Witnesses on the scene told the officers that Cowser was the one who had been attacked — that she had done nothing wrong.

Cellphone footage captured by a bystander shows Tubbs holding Cowser's hands behind her back. "Don't grab her like that," the young man recording can be heard saying. Seconds later, Tubbs performed what the lawsuit describes as a "forceful hip toss," launching the handcuffed girl airborne and slamming her face-first onto the asphalt with enough force that her feet flung above her head. Cowser lost consciousness on impact. According to the lawsuit, Tubbs then picked her up and dropped her face-first onto the metal floor sill of his patrol car. The next thing Cowser remembers is waking up in the backseat on the freeway, covered in blood, with the officer holding her phone. When she asked what happened, Tubbs told her, "You fell." Then everything went black again.

What followed was a documented pattern of lies. Tubbs called Cowser's mother, Tanya Brownridge, and told her their daughter was being taken to the hospital because she had received a "little cut" from fighting with other juveniles. Guillen did not correct him. That call was recorded on body-worn camera. Internally, the San Bernardino Police Department repeated the same false narrative — that Cowser's injuries came from the teen fight, not from the officer. Even after videos proved otherwise, the department, according to attorney Toni J. Jaramilla, "failed to correct the false narrative." Cowser was charged with trespassing and attempting to fight other juveniles. Those charges were later dismissed.

Officer Jackson Tubbs is not new to controversy. In 2023, he shot and killed a man during a vehicle code violation stop. That shooting led to a separate lawsuit and a $4.9 million settlement after San Bernardino police were accused of planting a gun that they claimed the victim had tossed. The fact that Tubbs remained on patrol — and was allowed to put his hands on a 110-pound teenager — raises hard questions about who the San Bernardino Police Department is willing to protect and who they are willing to sacrifice.

This case fits a pattern that Black communities across the country know too well. Officers use force first, then build a story after the fact. They know that without video, their word becomes the official record. In this case, both body camera and bystander footage existed from the start — and the department still pushed the false version of events. Cowser's lawsuit, filed against Tubbs, Guillen, and the city of San Bernardino, seeks accountability for excessive force, civil rights violations, and the deliberate cover-up that followed. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump posted about the case on social media, drawing national attention.

Erin Cowser, now 18, says she still suffers from severe emotional distress, anxiety, and the lasting physical effects of the assault. She was a high school senior at the time. She walked into a grocery store with her friends, got jumped by strangers, and then got brutalized by the people who were supposed to help her. The video does not lie, even when the officers did.

*