Video: Journalist’s profane, name-calling arrest after she claims racial profiling
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The profanity-laced, name-calling DWI arrest of an ‘award-winning journalist’ who champions Native American rights was captured on sheriff’s deputies lapel cameras.
As any journalist, like Jenni Monet, knows, there are two sides to every story. She told us hers, while that deputy’s lapel video tells another.
According to court documents, on Friday, April 5, Monet went to a liquor store on Old Pecos Trail in Santa Fe and attempted to buy two bottles of wine. The staff refused to sell to her, claiming she appeared drunk.
Surveillance video obtained by News 8 sister station, KRQE, shows Monet pull up to the store, go inside and be refused service. She then went back out to her car before she went back inside, and started screaming and making obscene gestures toward the staff.
Immediately after she left again, both she and the staff called for deputies.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department video of the incident was also obtained by KRQE.
“Have you been drinking at all tonight?” a deputy asked her. She said “no.”
“Okay. How come I can smell a really strong odor of alcohol?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve not been drinking,” she replied.
Monet told the deputies she was racially profiled.
“How were they racially profiling you is what I’m trying to get at?” the deputy asked.
“Because I’m a brown woman. Do you not see that?” Monet said, drawing a circle around her face.
Monet refused field sobriety tests and grew angry.
“I’m not walking any f***ing line for you. You hear me? I am not walking any f***ing line for you,” she told them.
She was then arrested, and screamed out, “Police brutality!” multiple times. She also called deputies names, saying “You f***ing fat-fingered f***!” and “You f***ing racist motherf***er. You f***ing white supremacist!”
On Thursday, nearly a week later, Monet spoke at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. KRQE News 13 caught up with her after the event and asked what happened.
“I am one of a majority of people who are victimized by this kind of racial profiling that exists on a daily basis,” she said, referring to the treatment by deputies.
Monet said she’s hired attorneys.
“Neither was I drinking or driving at the time, and we’re confident that the evidence that stands in my favor will vindicate me,” she said.
“The fact that I’m an award-winning journalist and that I said that to these officers, and they didn’t even run an ID check on me or check my name, or even validate the fact that I had called them for help…” she said.
In the lapel video, she told the deputies multiple times that she’s an award-winning journalist and to “look [her] up.”
She was arrested for aggravated DWI for refusing to take a breathalyzer test or do SFSTs. She was also charged with resisting arrest.
Disclosure: Jenni Monet worked as a reporter for KRQE News 13 about 20 years ago. She has not been affiliated with KRQE since then.