Former CMPD assistant chief says bus stop arrest ‘escalated really quickly’

The video released by CMPD on Tuesday walks through the moments before the now-viral arrest with video from body cameras, traffic lights and bystanders.

Channel 9′s Hannah Goetz watched that video on Tuesday with former CMPD assistant chief Vicki Foster. She said she saw a lot of common practices that are within CMPD policy, but she questions why it escalated so quickly at the beginning.

“You smoking weed? You guys smoking weed?” a officer asks in one body camera video.

“It’s coming from the store,” Tony Lee says.

“We got it from the store,” Christina Pierre, his fiancée, says.

“Well I can smell it coming from that,” the officer says.

“We got it from the smoke shop!” Pierre says.

“OK,” the officer says. “Well go ahead, do me a favor, put your hands behind her back.”

“Woah, woah, woah, what are you doing?” Pierre says.

>> To watch all the videos CMPD has released, click here.

Foster said the first few seconds of the interaction are where things went wrong.

“What I look at moreso is, how do we get to this point?” Foster asked.

It all started when officers approached the couple on the bench for smoking marijuana.

“In my opinion, this escalated really quickly, because there really was no conversation, you know, it was ‘are you guys smoking weed...’ it went directly to ‘hands behind your back.’ So to me, it escalated so quickly,” Foster said.

[ READ MORE: Amid controversial arrest over THC cigarette, what’s legal in North Carolina? ]

“We’re talking about a marijuana charge. And so in my mind, you know, I would think that the thought process should have been a little more along the lines of, you know, could this be a situation for a citation versus an arrest?” Foster asked.

Foster spent 28 years with CMPD and said she saw situations where use of force was needed. She spoke about the part of the video when the officer hits Christina Pierre -- after she appeared to hit him repeatedly.

“At the end of the day, we always have to remember that if you assault an officer, it doesn’t matter what that is. When there is a smack, a push, you know, whatever that is, you now put yourself in a situation where his use of force his or her use of force is going to be justified,” Foster said.

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The final part of the arrest included officers on top of Pierre delivering what CMPD calls “compliance blows.”

″While being very aware of what it looks like to the public, that is the lowest level of compliance that you use,” Foster said. “So you know, it’s not like you have a baton or taser, those are things that kind of come next.”

Foster said what she saw appears to be within CMPD policy but that doesn’t mean there can’t be change.

In a news conference Tuesday, CMPD chief Johnny Jennings said Officer Pistone, the officer who is seen hitting Pierre 17 times, was suspended for 40 hours. He is also required to go through additional training.

Jennings said 14 of Pistone’s strikes were while Pierre’s hands were behind her back, and therefore weren’t justified. He said Pistone should have stopped after the first three strikes and reevaluated his next steps.

Vicki Foster added that even in the calmer moments, Pierre and Lee were resisting arrest. She said despite moments where it doesn’t look or sound like they are fighting officers, if a person isn’t answering their questions or doing what an officer asks, that is considered resisting.

(WATCH BELOW: CMPD releases video of scuffle during controversial arrest at bus stop)