A Tianjin woman is beaten up by border officers after stumbling into a drug raid
For Tianjin businesswoman Zhao Yan, a sightseeing visit to the Niagara Falls at the US and Canadian border turned into a nightmare experience.
Ms Zhao, the operator of a fitness equipment company, says she was beaten up by homeland security inspector Robert Rhodes and suffered multiple injuries when he mistook her for a member of a drug smuggling gang.
The officer sprayed her with pepper spray, threw her against a wall, kneed her in the head as she knelt and struck her head on the ground while holding her hair.
'Whenever I hear a man speaking English or see one wearing a US police uniform, it makes me cringe. The assault not only physically harmed me, but also left me with mental trauma,' she said from her lawyer's office in New York on Saturday.
Rhodes was charged on Friday for what federal court prosecutor Michael Battle called a violation of the civil rights of the victim. He was released on US$50,000 bail. Ms Zhao, 37, entered the US on July 12 to attend business meetings. She joined a two-day tour package to Niagara Falls at Buffalo last Wednesday and visited sightseeing spot Rainbow Bridge at 11pm to look at the falls.
'I saw flickering light from a house nearby - out of curiosity I went in. I just wanted to take a few more photos,' Ms Zhao recalled.