Source: @AttorneyCrump / Twitter
A Chicago man is suing the city police department for the obvious, unnecessary and very preventable brutal violence he was a victim of as shown on newly released bodycam video. Leroy Kennedy IV wasn’t resisting when police profiled and assaulted him last summer, his lawyer said. Instead, the police report said he was targeted because of what was described as “a shocked look on his face” that purportedly prompted fear Kennedy was “attempting to conceal a firearm.”
The troubling video footage was released earlier this week when Kennedy filed the suit against the Chicago Police Department. It opens with police quickly approaching Kennedy, who is not seen doing anything more than just standing there on a street outside of a store. One of the officers immediately flips up Kennedy’s t-shirt, which revealed nothing. With both cops now menacing Kennedy, the Black cop keeps trying to grab him before they slammed him to the ground together.
Kennedy said the incident on Aug. 23 not only left him bloodied and physically injured but also mentally scarred, dreading any potential encounter with law enforcement.
“It left me feeling traumatized. Man, I ain’t gonna lie,” Kennedy told ABC News. “You get nervous. You get even more nervous once you see the police.”
Kennedy said he was not resisting and only wanted to get his eyeglasses.
Still, Kennedy was arrested.
The bodycam video revealed one officer asking the arresting officer why Kennedy was being taken into custody before answering his own question: “So you don’t know what he was arrested for?”
Watch the disturbing video below.
Kennedy had nothing illegal in his possession when he was arrested. In an indication that the police know Kennedy was arrested for no other reason than the implicit bias officers harbor against Black people, all charges against him were eventually dropped.
Kennedy’s lawsuit was the latest black eye for an embattled police department that is fresh off another brutality-related scandal.
Anjanette Young recently recalled her traumatic experience with the Chicago Police Department that underscored the levels of PTSD she is seemingly still suffering from following the execution of a baseless search warrant at her home. Bodycam recorded the on February 2019 encounter and showed Young being handcuffed and forced to stand naked in her living room for more than 10 minutes during a search for a suspect who was actually next door and under electronic surveillance with an ankle monitor.
Like Kennedy, Young is also suing the Chicago Police Department. Also like with Kennedy, Young said that cops realized the error in their ways much too late.
“They knew they had done something wrong,” Young said in December when her lawsuit was announced. “They knew that the way they treated me was not right.”
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Bodycam Video From Brutality Lawsuit Shows Police Beat Black Man Because He Looked ‘Shocked’ was originally published on newsone.com
