A New York woman is charged with choking a club bouncer until he fell unconscious. Kierah Lagrave, 22, told police she thought the bouncer groped her.
Lagrave turned herself in to police on Thursday. She was charged with second-degree felony strangulation, which carries a 7 year prison sentence.
Surveillance footage from the Five1Eight nightclub in Plattsburgh shows Lagrave and a female friend standing by the bar.
A bouncer walks by on Lagrave’s right side as her friend, who is on her left, appears to reach around and grope her buttocks.
Lagrave follows the bouncer and wraps her arms around his neck in a chokehold. Moments later the bouncer loses consciousness and both he and Lagrave collapse to the floor.
Police tracked Lagrave down and called her after viewing the video footage. The 125 lb. student agreed to turn herself in, and she was released on her own recognizance.
Lagrave told London’s Daily Mail that she is sure it was the bouncer who groped her.
“My friends weren’t on my right side, so I was concerned,” she said. “I didn’t know if he was going to slip something in my drink. I wasn’t going to take any chance.”
Lagrave said she didn’t intentionally try to hurt e bouncer wen she put him in a chokehold. She said she choked him out “to ensure my own safety.”
Police said the surveillance video clearly shows Lagrave’s friend groping her. But Lagrave said the footage wasn’t conclusive. “It was clear the bouncer was on my right side where I was grabbed,” she insisted.
“When I was giving my statement, the officer would keep saying things like ‘He didn’t do it’, ‘you’re wrong’, ‘sooner or later you will have to pay for this,'” she told The Mail.
