The mother of two teenage girls arrested during a violent encounter with police in March has sued the city of Poughkeepsie for false arrest and using excessive use of force during the incident, which was captured in a video that went viral.

The lawsuit, filed Sunday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, stemmed from a March 11 confrontation between Officer Kevin D. VanWagner and sisters Jamelia Barnett and Julissa Dawkins. According to the suit, the children were part of a group of witnesses to a fight that spilled over from an earlier confrontation near the intersection of Church Street and Hammersley Ave. in Poughkeepsie, though neither girl was personally involved in the disputes.

During the incident, VanWagner allegedly "jarringly grabbed" Dawkins, who was 12 years old at the time, and suspended her in the air before dropping her "on the cold concrete" and "landing on top pf her with the force of his entire body." Barnett, meanwhile, attempted to run toward her sister, but was allegedly slammed to the ground by Officer John Williams, dislocating her shoulder and briefly losing consciousness after her head hit the pavement.

A 17-second video of the ordeal was later widely viewed on the internet, "creating Ferguson-like tensions between the community and the police," the complaint said.

In the nine-page filing, an attorney for the girls' mother, Melissa Johnson, said police then intimidated other young witnesses into turning over their phones and deleted videos of the encounter.

Mayor Rob Rolison said in a statement that the city had "thoroughly investigated" the arrests and found to be "reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances surrounding the incident, which included an officer being forced to the ground and a fight that had spilled-out into traffic."

"This administration has the utmost confidence in the police department and recognizes the hard work it does to keep the community safe," Rolison said.

Attorney William Wagstaff III said in the complaint that both girls were separated following the arrest and held without a guardian or lawyer present. Barnett, the older of the two girls, was on her period and soiled herself during the clash with police but was not provided with sanitary napkins at the station, according to the filing.

Both girls were released to Johnson "after hours" in custody and were charged with obstruction of governmental administration, the complaint said. Dawkins was additionally charged with resisting arrest.

"As a direct and proximate result of defendants' acts, plaintiffs suffered violations of their civil rights, including loss of physical liberty, degradation, humiliation, loss of reputation and severe emotional distress, which will be carried with them for life," Wagstaff wrote in the complaint.

The filing also alleged that members of the police department began calling teenage witnesses in a "campaign of intimidation" that threatened teenage witnesses with jail time if they did not cooperate with efforts to "cover up" the actions of the officers.

"The tone of these calls was authoritarian and intended to intimidate the children into providing statements that would corroborate the narratives of the arresting officers, despite their falsehoods," the complaint said.

The filing included an affidavit from William Murphy, who said his daughter and surrogate daughter were both called to the Poughkeepsie police station, and they were being charged with assault stemming from a separate fight March 9.

Both girls had witnessed the encounter with Barnett and Dawkins and provided their phones to police. When their phones were returned to them hours later, Murphy said, videos of the March 11 incident were erased from their cloud storage, and officers appeared to be "gleeful" mood.

"The city of Poughkeepsie lied to my daughters and me about their motivations," Murphy said in the affidavit. "I am convinced that they brought my daughters in only looking for evidence to destroy to protect their fellow officers."

Wagstaff said that meetings with Rolison to discipline officers and improve police training were unsuccessful and ultimately led to the lawsuit's filing. It names as Williams and VanWagner as individual defendants alongside the city and its police department.

It seeks compensatory and punitive damages, in addition to attorney fees and other relief.

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York White Plains courthouse, is captioned Johnson v. Williams.