So for September we have chosen the Chicago Police Department, particularly, the officers who were responsible for arresting George Roberts.
CBS Chicago reports on a lawsuit filed by Roberts against the Chicago Police Department. According to Roberts, he was falsely arrested and roughed up by police following a traffic stop. Here’s the thing: Roberts investigates police misconduct for the Independent Police Review Authority. And it was when the police discovered that fact that the abuse of power began. Mysteriously, several police cameras on the scene were turned off:
It is against policy in both Chicago and Illinois for a police officer to turn off his dashboard camera, CBS Chicago reports.
Vehicles belonging to two other officers on the scene were equipped with audio recording devices, though no audio of the encounter was saved, according to the lawsuit.
Roberts said in the lawsuit, which was filed on Sept. 15, that the camera was shut off after officers realized he worked for the Independent Police Review Authority — or IPRA — the agency responsible for investigating police misconduct.
Roberts said he was initially stopped for a minor traffic violation, but was then pushed in the back by one of the officers and forced to the ground. He said in the lawsuit that an officer shouted, “Don’t make me [expletive] shoot you.”
But “when the (officers) turned off the dash camera, things got worse,” his attorneys write in the lawsuit.
Roberts, who was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police vehicle, complained that the handcuffs were too tight, according to the lawsuit. The 6-foot-3, 315 pound man says that, instead, it would have have been appropriate for officers to use multiple handcuffs strung together for someone of his size.
He says in the lawsuit that one of the officers responded to his complaints: “What are you going to tell me next, you can’t breathe?” — an apparent reference to Eric Garner, a New York City man who died in 2014 as a result of a police choke hold.
Roberts also says he was told “that’s your fault,” when he pointed out that his weight made the single set of handcuffs painful.
Read the whole thing. Roberts was suspended from his job while charges were pending. Following his acquittal, he returned to work.
Worst of the Month — September is a post from PoliceMisconduct.net