A police officer in North Carolina has been charged with assault after a doorbell camera video showed him repeatedly punching a woman while trying to arrest her. The officer, Karson Hyder of the Shelby Police Department, surrendered in the morning on June 1, days after the footage emerged, which had prompted the police chief to fire him. In the video, which was posted to social media on May 29, Hyder is seen wrestling the woman Cherrie Moore to the ground and then punching her repeatedly
in the face. The blows continue as another officer approaches and tries to intervene. Eventually, the two officers place Moore in handcuffs and arrest her. Moore suffered a possible broken nose and busted lip, according to the arrest warrant for Hyder, who was charged with one count of assault inflicting serious injury. “The family as well as the community is rather appreciative of how quickly our city officials responded to the events of last Friday,” Ronald Haynes Jr, a lawyer representing Moore, said in a
phone interview on June 1. Haynes added that he was disappointed that Hyder was facing only a misdemeanour charge. “I definitely think he should be facing a felonious charge,” he said. Hyder, 22, was released on a US$10,000 (S$12,789) bond and was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Cleveland County Court in Shelby. Hyder could not be reached for comment. Messages left with family members were not immediately returned. Mike Miller, the Cleveland County district attorney, did not respond to a request for comment on
June 1. After video of the arrest circulated on social media on May 29, protesters gathered outside the police department in Shelby, a city of about 22,000 about an hour’s drive west of Charlotte. The police chief, Brad Fraser, announced on May 30 that the officer, who had not been named publicly at that point, had been fired after an administrative review. In a statement over the weekend, Fraser called the footage “disturbing and inappropriate”. He did not respond to a request for comment on
June 1. The findings by the Shelby police were forwarded to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, which completed its review of the case on June 1 and recommended that charges be brought against Hyder. Hyder had a history with Moore. After an incident involving Hyder while he was still on the force, Moore pleaded guilty in 2025 to a charge of resisting a police officer; she served 15 days in jail. Moore, 34, has a history of arrests for low-level offences, according to
court records, and more recently, she had struggled with her mental health and was essentially homeless, her lawyer said. Haynes said that the police wanted to question Moore about an early morning fire at a long-abandoned funeral home, a site that homeless people had used for shelter and that was known as a place to go for illicit drugs. When the officers found Moore, Hyder tried to handcuff her. When Moore asked why Hyder was grabbing her, he told her that he had a warrant,
according to audio from the video and Haynes. Hyder then threw her to the ground and began punching her. On May 29, Moore was charged with resisting a police officer, assaulting a government official and breaking or entering. The first two charges have since been dropped, but the breaking or entering charge remains, Haynes said. “It wasn’t like she was resisting,” Haynes said. “This officer saw her and assumed she had something to do with the building catching on fire, which is curious because they
didn’t charge her with arson.” “She’s still hurting,” her father Gregory Moore said in a brief telephone interview, saying he was on his way to visit his daughter at a clinic. “She’s just trying to be strong in front of her daddy.” NYTIMES
Karson Hyder, Shelby Police Department, Cherrie Moore, doorbell video, assault inflicting serious injury, Brad Fraser, North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, Cleveland County Court