Game developer Patricia Pizer was arrested in Rock Hill, South Carolina yesterday on charges that she assaulted a police officer while filming the officers with her phone. According to The Herald, the Rock Hill police department’s report states that Pizer assaulted an officer. Pizer’s husband, who says he has seen a surveillance video of the arrest, has come forward with a very different recounting of the events.
Pizer, 53, is a career game developer who started as a tester at the groundbreaking adventure game publisher Infocom in the 1980s. Since then, she has worked at THQ, Ubisoft and Disney, where she designed the online service DGamer. She currently runs a consulting firm called Where’s The Fun Games.
An outpouring of support has come from the game development community since Pizer’s husband Thomas put up a public Facebook post about her arrest and subsequent hearing.
The Herald reported that Pizer was at a convenience store when the incident occurred. She used her mobile phone to film police officers who were arresting another person. Both accounts of the story agree that the officers then told Pizer to back away, but they diverge from there.
According to the police report, Pizer “threw a cold beverage in [the officer’s] face”, “took her right hand in a closed fist, and maliciously struck” the officer, as quoted by The Herald. Further, the report said that the officer “struck Pizer’s right forearm” and “foot swept” her to the ground during the altercation. She “struck her front teeth on the pavement and screamed in pain,” read the report.
In a public Facebook post using Patricia’s account, Pizer’s husband told a different story. He said he was not at the store, but had gone to the store later and viewed the surveillance video.
“He tells her to Walk away or be Arrested,” he wrote. “She walks away and starts filming with her phone in Selfie mode. Cop runs up behind her and hits her like a football player. She leaves her feet and goes face first into the glass door of the gas station cop then punches her in the head, Picks her up and slams her.” Pizer injured her arm and broke several teeth, he said.
Following her hearing, Pizer has been released from gaol on $US8000 ($10,996) bond. A friend of the family has set up a GoFundMe for legal and medical expenses.
Comments
30 responses to “Conflicting Reports Emerge About Game Developer’s Arrest After Filming Police”
If that’s really what’s on the camera footage, the police department will try to stop that getting anywhere near court. It certainly seems a suspicious story that she suddenly threw a drink and went to punch a police officer out of the blue.
Yeah, a 53 year old game developer suddenly going primal on a carolinian cop seems totally legit…
I do think it’s really weird that the husband got access to surveillance, though.
But looks like woman got her face smashed in by a cop either way. Nasty, but just watch how little heat comes down on those officers even though it was a white woman this time.
If my convenience store had evidence that a person was beaten by the police, I’d sure be giving the surveillance footage to the family.
It doesn’t matter that she’s white. The circumstances will make people assume she’s left wing. The camera makes the argument she was looking for trouble. Her family has set up a GoFundMe for account so obviously she’s an entitled brat. For enough people that’s a free ticket to dismiss the entire thing as a left wing trouble maker getting what they deserve. It’s incredibly sad to look at it that way but it seems to be how this stuff plays out.
Family set up a gofundme is taken as entitled brat? Have you got a spare $10,000 sitting about for bond and medical expenses on top of that? Cause i sure dont.
Id say its more a case of, they require assistance with affording incurred costs, even more so appropriate if the husbands story is accurate.
If she did do what she is accused of, then i think any money accquired through the gofundme page should be returned. Otherwise, fair game!
The person at the convenience store probably showed them the footage. Not weird at all. Especially if it is a family member.
American cops freak the fuck out when being filmed even though it’s legal anywhere public. There are so many videos on Youtube of them lying through their teeth about it being illegal. Not surprising when they are acting like this. I wouldn’t want footage of me doing that getting out either.
This is a regular occurrence in the US – cops pressing pre-emptive charges in anticipation of a lawsuit or complaint.
The worst of it is that when they’re discovered for being the jumped-up, ignorant pieces of shit that they are, there are zero consequences.
This is what happens when you allow your law enforcement agencies to be infiltrated by hard-right authoritarians. We’re not that far behind America with UberSturmFuhrer Dutton’s push to create his ‘mega homeland security’ department with no checks and balances.
In fact, we have fewer protections than America does if he starts stepping things up, which he shows every sign of intending to do. African gangs anyone?
It doesn’t pay to be apathetic about these things.
Doesn’t even need to be the ‘hard-right authoritarians’. Labor’s helped the coalition pass every other authoritarian bullshit measure they’ve put up, almost completely without argument.
The segment of Australian politics who aren’t chomping at the bit to expand their powers is incredibly thin to the point of impotence.
haha don’t tell me you think Labor is ‘left’!
Even the ‘progressive’ wing of Labor is Center-right.
This is what happens when you have an ageing and indolent society, everything lurches towards authoritarianism rapidly.
And it never, ever ends well.
Jesus christ are you okay in the head?
Your militant ramblings have always been ludicrous and radicalized left to a great degree and your love of bringing wings into EVERY goddamn discussion is borderline nonsensical.
No wonder your spewing so much crap all the time, to even left leaning people you call them center right because you drank all the goddamn kool aid.
Well, since the staff at Kotaku let this comment through, let’s respond in kind.
You’re the biggest misogynist, fascist on this entire site. You appear in any comments section to do with gender and politics and downvote anyone left of Hitler. The rare times you have the guts to comment you demonstrate that you REALLY don’t like women, or liberal freedoms.
Basically, you’re nothing more than cheeto-scented Taliban.
You must be very upset that Ubersturmfuhrer Dutton didn’t make it to be PM 🙁
Not a misogynist, not a fascist, but with you anybody who doesnt believe the same bullshit with identity politics is right wing so what a shock you would assume that.
Hell i dont even like cheetos, but hey, whats another throw at the dartboard at some kind of insult when you have nothing beyond your own delusion at anyone who disagrees with you must be some kind of right wing nutjob, hell even stalin would probably be closer to the right than you.
I would LOVE it if Dutton was PM because that would ensure the liberal government would get voted out on mass in the next election and it would be hilarious.
Oh wait. Im supposed to Love Dutton right? Thats the idea you have in your head about anyone that disagrees with you must be right wing, Despite the fact ive voted for the Greens in the last 3 elections and the fact im actually on the left, im just not extremely radicalized like you.
Keep holding onto that Rhetoric you spit out like Venom.
I honestly feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with you in real life if this is the way you act.
Ohhh, so you downvote everything progressive and ‘feminist’ because you’re being ironic!
Well that makes a lot more sense then!
Well I need to revise my opinion of you. You do the perfect parody of a screeching man-child who takes every opportunity he can to demonstrate his dislike of women and progressive, liberal notions.
And all along you were a Social Justice Warrior, actually supporting the things you appear to hate.
I tip my fedora to you 😉
Not, not being ironic, because the things you claim are progressive and feminist are actually insane ramblings who believe identity politics are all that matters, bringing it up in topics like this one where its not really in play and youre always assuming women are always the victims when they (especially in the most recent guild wars drama) arent.
These arent right/left wing paradigms. Just extreme left hate spech.
But considering youre too oblivious and think everyone who disagrees with you is still a right wing nutjob, i suppose it would be hard to see that.
Remember when the left was about peace love and understanding? They were good times.
Now we just have left leaning people thinking they are right and therefore acting like complete and utter idiots spouting hatred. But its okay to spread hatred as long as it against a minority or a woman according to extremists like yourself.
It’s alright old mate, your secret it safe with me 😉
The really fun part is they enacted laws to prevent the media reporting on a lot of the dodgy stuff they’re doing. So the public isn’t even aware of half the crap our government is up to.
When telling how something played out, if you start using flair words like “maliciously attacked”, you suddenly sound like you are over-embellishing and therefore, not telling the story as it played out. In my opinion, the only type of person who maliciously attacks someone is someone who’s intent on hurting someone well before the act takes place, or someone deranged.
So in my completely non-legal and improperly informed opinion, the cops are lying through their fish-stinking teeth.
Ok so there is only one way to solve this. I wont condemn her or the cops.
Release the video. Video does not lie.
Not an expert on this, but if the video is released publically, I think it becomes invalid for use as evidence in court? Something like that.
I can only see that happening if the case is going before a Jury, and even then that’s an incredibly stupid law if it’s real.
Evidence is evidence, you can’t say something isn’t evidence because other people have seen it before.
Yes and no…. the problem is the context of what you see and how much you see.
We all know how very easy it is to miscontrue an event depending on how you fram the picture and how much you say or withhold. That can lead to a prejudice for the jury if they see the event beforehand.
Yes it doesnt change the fact evidence is still evidence…. the issue is in how the video is presented.
I genuinely think I’m wrong on that, but I’m sure I read something about it once.
Police: “The video proves that she was agressive and the officers used the correct amount of force”
Public: “Well can we see your proof for ourselves if its so conclusive?”
Police: … “no”
What’s the point of body cams if they aren’t available for the person accused to review?
They just say “we forgot to turn them on” anyway…
This to me is the biggest problem with body cams. If they’re not on the whole damned time then how can you trust them?
That was proven by all those officers who didn’t understand how the video buffer on their bodycams work and got caught planting evidence.
They weren’t planting evidence they were “retroactively finding evidence in a reenactment manner” 😀
I’m not surprised by this at all. Fucking atrocious, but not surprising.
More to the story than what is being posted. It seems Pizers husband/boyfriend uses various names and was released from prison forattempting to kill a police officer, than he was arrested again. and their is reports of Patricia link to some type of Tech scam and other go fund me scams. this is a post from police dept site.
Seeing that her husband Thomas Pizer aka Thomas Connors spent 8 years incarcerated in a federal penitentiary in Texas. He was convicted of “attempted murder of a federal officer,” in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1114. The case number is 4:00-cr-00108-WRF, adjudicated in the Western District of Texas. His defense? Insanity. As well as being arrested again in Florida for impersonating a Department of Homeland Security agent, I would say this couple has an issue with law enforcement. Here is the article from Florida, https://www.govexec.com/…/officials-nab-fugitive…/58592/
And here is an article about Patricia and her husband creating a GoFundMe type page for a “friend” with MS but then turning around and taking all the money for themselves. http://techgeek.com.au/2014/10/21/real-tk-tech-news-fraud/. The picture in the article matches the picture Patricia has on her Facebook page.
These two are career con artist with complete disregard for the law. I hope she gets the book thrown at her for her actions during her arrest and after her arrest!!