A Canadian woman accused of creating a drunken disturbance and assaulting a police officer in front of hundreds of people in Baton Rouge, La., said Thursday she plans to plead not guilty.
In an incident caught on video, Veronique Bourgault, of Repentigny, Que., was arrested Friday evening following the fracas at a busy Tiger Stadium.
Bourgault, who said she was in Baton Rouge for a country music festival, admits she was very drunk.
"It was terrible," Bourgault, 38, told The Canadian Press from New Orleans. "I was dancing with my boyfriend and a guy told me to rent a room."
She said the comment — and another that suggested she was a prostitute — made her angry and she uttered an expletive at the man.
"I'm not like this," she said. "It was my new boyfriend and we were on vacation."
A police officer then went to grab her, but she didn't initially realize that's who it was, she said.
Her arrest record obtained by The Canadian Press says Bourgault was at the Bayou Country SuperFest when someone complained she was making "sexual gestures" while sitting on a man's lap.
"The complainant advised me that he had his 12-year-old daughter and his wife with him and that this was very inappropriate for this to be taking place," the sheriff's deputy states in an affidavit.
When the officer told the couple to stop, they complied but Bourgault, who owns and operates a child-care centre in Quebec, allegedly harassed the family and started cursing and making vulgar gestures at them, according to the officer.
At that point, the officer told the couple to leave. While the man complied, she refused, he said.
"I then attempted to handcuff the subject...when she pulled away and attacked me," the officer states.
Bystander video of the incident, posted on YouTube, shows a wild scene as the officer tries to escort Bourgault from the stadium. The woman, initially holding and spilling a bottle of beer, is clearly unsteady on her feet as the officer tells her, "Stop resisting, stop resisting." The video shows her tumbling down the stairs twice.
"The subject then knocked me off balance (and) when I fell down the stairs, while on my back, the subject punched me in the face with a closed fist," the officer states in the affidavit.
Another sheriff's deputy was able to help arrest Bourgault and take her into custody, where she was charged with public intoxication and battery on a police officer.
"I can't believe how the police treated me," she said after watching the video earlier this week. "I have bruises everywhere."
Bourgault was released on Sunday on US$4,500 bail. She is due back in court Sept. 19.
Bourgault, a mother of four, is the CEO and owner of Garderie Coeur d'enfant daycare and preschool in Ste-Marthe-sur-le-lac, Que.
She said she's worried the arrest will affect her business. She also said she was afraid after receiving a message from a "nasty" woman who told her to stay away from Baton Rouge.
"In Canada it's not like this," she said.
Her boyfriend, she said, has since returned to Quebec and, it appears, the fledgling relationship is over.
