In the newly released video, Officer Eric Pratt tells a distraught and sobbing Petito that witnesses had reported seeing Laundrie hit or “punch you.” He asks if it’s true, and she responds: “I guess, yeah, but I hit him first,” adding that she “slapped him.”
Pratt, who notices marks on Petito’s face and left arm, presses her for details.
“Well, he kept telling me to shut up,” Petito responds. “He didn’t like, hit me in the face … like, punch me in the face or anything. … He, like, grabbed me with his [finger] nail, and I guess that’s why it looks … I definitely have a cut right here [points to cheek] because I can feel it. When I touch it, it burns.” She said he had also grabbed her arm when the officer asked about marks on her skin.
She later asked, sobbing: “Can’t we just have, like, a driving ticket?” She offered to pay any ticket instead of facing charges against either her or Laundrie.
Petito told the officers she had been struggling with her mental health and with Laundrie while living in the van’s close quarters. (Cont.)
Source: Huffington Post