Chikesia Clemons, the woman at the center of the violent Alabama Waffle House arrest, spoke publicly for the first time on Sunday morning about the harrowing incident last weekend.
“I’m just taking it day by day, it’s just so hard on me, I can’t eat I can’t sleep, I’m constantly crying, I have a six-year-old daughter, I’m trying to be strong for her,” Clemons told Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s PolticsNation Sunday morning. “She sees me crying, she starts to cry so it’s very hard on me at the time right now.”
#ChikesiaClemons (Waffle House police assault victim) asks for the public to continue to stand with her live on #PoliticsNation w/ Al Sharpton pic.twitter.com/OJtN4CsNIY
— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) April 29, 2018
She also thanked people who have come to her defense since video of the arrest spread around the country.
“I’m so appreciative of the love and support you guys have been giving, I ask you guys continue to be behind me as you fight for justice for me,” said Clemons.
Police say Clemons and a friend were drunk when they entered the Waffle House early Sunday morning and they brought alcohol into the store. Police say she threatened to “shoot up the place” and went as far as sharing a picture of her in jail holding a trash can, stating that she had to throw up because she was drunk.
Clemons and her attorneys has disputed the account, saying that she simply asked for plastic utensils and was told she had to pay for them. When she demanded to speak to a manager, police were called.
Sharpton, along with Clemons’s attorney Benjamin Crump, will be in Mobile to host a town hall meeting on the arrest next week on Tuesday evening.