Leroy Kennedy, of Chicago, said he was walking down the street while contemplating his own business when two police officers forcibly arrested him and left bruises on his face.
Kennedy, a black man, is now suing the Chicago police station, claiming that the officer’s body camera video shows he was not violating any laws when he was arrested in August.
“We are looking for justice for Mr. Kennedy. “We are also going to shine a spotlight on the corrosive ‘us against them’ mentality that the Chicago police are taking in many black and Latino neighborhoods,” his attorney, Christopher Smith, said in a statement.
The body camera recording was released by Smith and does not include audio in the first few minutes. The noise begins after Kennedy is arrested.
In the video, officers Ridgner and Abramson run to Kennedy and stop him as he walks on the sidewalk. It appears that Kennedy and the officers are exchanging words and one of the officers, a Black man, bumps Kennedy against a brick wall.
The officer is then seen on the video taking Kennedy to the ground while the second officer tries to control a crowd that has gathered.
Kennedy is handcuffed and put in the back of a police car, the video shows. The two officers then drove him some distance to another place and called an ambulance.
Smith said Saturday he did not know exactly what his client and officers said to each other, but the arrest was not justified.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, officers Ridgner and Abramson were patrolling the west side of the city around 5:30 p.m., when they arrested Kennedy. In the case, it is said that Kennedy ‘thought his own business on the sidewalk’ and ‘did not break any laws’.
It says Kennedy sustained injuries to his head and wrist and was treated in hospital.
After the arrest, the officers “conspired among themselves over what to do”, the lawsuit reads.
“In an illegal attempt to justify their horrific attack on Mr Kennedy, the accused officers created false reports claiming that Mr Kennedy had committed several criminal batteries against them,” it said.
According to a police report Smith provided to NBC News, officers wrote that they stopped Kennedy because he was looking directly at them, stiffening his body and enlarging his eyes.
“Kennedy adjusted his hands and manipulated his front shooting range,” the officers wrote, saying they believed Kennedy could carry a gun.
The police report states that Kennedy threw his arms at Ridgner and shouted at him not to touch him.
Kennedy was arrested on two charges of resisting arrest and one charge of serious police officers. The charges were dismissed in December.
According to the lawsuit, the charges were dismissed because there was no case against Kennedy.
Chicago police said in a statement on Saturday, “We can not comment on pending or proposed lawsuits.” The agency did not respond to questions about whether officers Ridgner and Abramson imposed disciplinary action over the arrest.
The officers could not be reached at the phone numbers listed for them.
Smith said Saturday that his client has suffered trauma since the incident. He filed the lawsuit because he wants the police department to be accountable for the arrest and to pay attention to how the officers on the west and south sides of Chicago, which are primarily minority areas, are being treated.
“We want the city, whether it be the mayor or the police, to investigate how they have officers in these neighborhoods, with a plan to be ‘us against them’ in advance,” Smith said. wants it to stop on an overall level. “
Kennedy is seeking compensation for compensation because the officers ‘acted maliciously, intentionally or oppressively’.
