The video went viral: A Warren police officer strapping a young mother from Detroit into a restraint chair and slicing off her hair weave.
Now that same officer is once again caught cutting on camera – this time accused of slicing open a prisoner’s hand.
Lawyers who say they’ve followed this officer’s alleged “use of force” problems for years say it was only a matter of time before this happened again.
7 Investigator Heather Catallo obtained exclusive video from inside the Warren Police Jail.
In the video, you can see Warren Police Officer Bernadette Najor, who now uses her married name, Bernadette Moore.
In the video, Officer Moore can be seen ordering an intoxicated 19-year-old from Warren to remove a bracelet that’s made of string.
Shannon Morris says she tried telling the officer that the bracelet doesn’t come off. But she ends up on the ground, with a large gash in her hand.
“The next thing I remember is being on the floor asking what happened over and over again. One of the male officers just replied with ‘she stabbed you,’”said Morris.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this officer use a sharp object on a prisoner. Officer Moore made headlines around the world back in 2014 when the 7 Investigators first exposed how she strapped a young mother into a restraint chair and used scissors to slice off her sewn-in hair weave.
So how did a knife get into Officer Moore’s hands, when weapons are not allowed inside Warren’s lock up?
“I didn’t feel like I was a human anymore, the way they had treated me,” said Morris.
Morris admits that since she’s only 19, she should not have been drinking back on April 2, 2016. But Morris says she’s actually the one who called the police, hoping to thwart a drug deal from taking place near her house.
“I was pushed around. I wasn’t treated like I had any value at all, when I was trying to do was help in the beginning,” said Morris.
Belligerent and intoxicated, Warren police took Morris into custody. Morris says she suffers from depression and anxiety, and doesn’t remember much of her arrest.
After the scuffle over her string friendship bracelets, police reports show that those do get removed. Then the officers try to remove the drawstring of Shannon’s pants. One of the male officers asked a third officer to get the safety scissors. Instead, Officer Moore “produced a pocket knife and cut the strings out herself.”
That’s when her hand got sliced.
“She didn’t stop bleeding the entire night. We’re not talking about a small injury. We’re not talking about a laceration. We’re talking about a gash,” said Attorney Paul Misukewicz. Misukewicz said he wasn’t surprised to learn Officer Moore caused his client’s injuries.
“As soon as I heard the name, I said oh boy,” said Misukewicz.
Misukewicz also represented Charda Gregory, the woman who had her weave cut off by force. Misukewicz says Warren Police did the right thing when they fired Officer Moore for that. But an arbitrator forced the city to hire Moore back, because there was not a clear policy that prevented weave removals.
“She should have never got her job back, that arbitrator – that was a miscarriage of justice,” said Misukewicz.
But this time there is a very clear policy: you cannot have weapons in the lock-up.
“It’s right there in their policy manual – it’s unquestioned she violated policy by bringing that knife in to the jail,” said Misukewicz.
Shannon Morris and Charda Gregory are not the only women who say they’ve been hurt by Officer Moore. The 7 Investigators uncovered police records that reveal at least 4 additional women who had issues with Officer Moore’s use of force.
“She took her boot and put it in my hair, and yanked her boot back, and pulled my hair out with her boot, and then kicked me in my side,” Virginia Hamilton told 7 Investigator Heather Catallo in 2015.
“She hit me with a closed fist – in the face,” said Kathy Buford in February 2015.
“I feel bad for the city of Warren, because it sucks that anyone has to work with her when they know she’s not doing her job,” said Morris. “They’re putting everyone at risk with having her work there.”
The city of Warren isn’t commenting about this, because Officer Moore is suing the police department and the Police Commissioner for firing her after the weave-cutting incident.
As for Shannon Morris, she is facing six misdemeanor charges.
We have also learned that Officer Moore is now facing an unpaid suspension.
Moore’s attorneys released a statement to us: “Officer Moore is an excellent police officer doing a difficult job. On a daily basis, people are brought to jail angry, intoxicated, delusional, and worse. Moore treats everyone with respect, even those who assault her and there have been many over the years.”
