Reel Urban News Exclusive

Zennea Foster suffers from Erb’s Palsy. The childhood condition causes her left arm to lie useless at her side. Despite her disability, the 38-year-old Los Angeles black woman is the mother of four, foster mother of two, a special education assistant and an entrepreneur. But her accomplishments didn’t save Foster, who stands about 5’3″, from a brutal beating on Feb. 4, 2015 by three hulking LAPD cops.

Foster was called to a house she owns and rents as an assisted living facility for seniors. A fight had broken out. When Foster arrived, she was talking on her cell phone to the person sought by the police. She tried to offer the phone to an officer – a move police say “delayed” their investigation. A black officer was the first to attack her.

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In her first on-camera interview, Foster tells Michael Reel of ReelUrbanNews.com, “One of the officers grabbed me, turned me in his direction and hit me. Out of reaction I hit back. From that point I was hit a couple of times. I fell to the ground. As I fell to the ground I was hit, kneed and I was just beaten really badly.”

Foster tells Reel in the exclusive interview that she believed “they were going to kill me.”

“I was kicked, I was hit, I was punched, I was stepped on,” says Foster. Her cell phone conversation was recorded, says Foster’s attorney Carl Douglas of the Douglas / Hicks law firm. “It’s a chilling sound when you hear the blows and the stomps and the impacts into her body and her screaming.” Graphic police photos of the incident confirm the severity of her injuries.

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Two more cops joined in the beating. Foster was charged with resisting arrest and battery on the cop ­– the only arrest that resulted from the incident.

After 12 days on trial, Foster was found guilty of two counts of obstructing, resisting or delaying a police officer. All battery counts were later dismissed by the judge in the interest of justice. Foster was sentenced to 250 hours of community service.

Foster and Douglas have now launched a civil suit against the LAPD. “We are looking for justice,” says Douglas. “No amount of money is going to make this woman right.”

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