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Police in suburban Chicago punched a prone teenager repeatedly in the head after he fled a traffic stop Wednesday, leaving him hospitalized with internal bleeding, according to a family representative.
A bystander video that was widely shared on Facebook begins after the teenager is on the ground and shows two officers punching the teenager’s legs and face at least 10 times. One officer appears to press the teenager’s head into the concrete while punching him in the face several times.
Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, identified the boy as Hadi Abu Atela, 17, rising high school senior.
Abu Atela suffered a broken nose, internal bleeding in the forehead and brain cavity, and bruises all over his body, according to Rehab. He was in stable condition at a hospital Friday afternoon, Rehab said.
Oak Lawn, Ill., Police Chief Daniel Vittorio defended the officers’ actions, saying at a news conference Thursday that “deadly force” was justified because the teenager was reaching for a bag that police said later found loaded a gun. Vittorio said officers had a “reasonable suspicion” that Abu Atella was armed, based on his movements during pursuit and apprehension.
On Thursday, police released dash cam footage showing Abu Atela running from the car and officers throwing punches during the fight before deploying a stun gun. Oak Lawn police do not wear body cameras.
The use of force is being investigated internally — as is protocol after any use of force — but officers are back on the job, Vittorio said. One police officer who was also injured went to hospital, but Vittorio refused to give details of the officer’s injuries.
Rehab — whose organization is representing the family in the civil rights component of the case while another attorney is working on the criminal aspect — said it recognizes that police have the right to use force to subdue an uncooperative suspect, but that the force in this case was ” unlawful and excessive’. He noted that Abu Attellah weighed 115 pounds.
“We believe this is a classic case of excessive force, wild force that was unnecessary,” Rehab said. “If they had just handcuffed his wrists after he was on the ground and proceeded properly professionally, I don’t think we’d even be here.”
Rehab said the family is calling for “appropriate disciplinary action” for the officers and a review of their training. The officers should be suspended pending the conclusion of the investigation, Rehab said.
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At a news conference Thursday where authorities released the dashcam footage, Vittorio said he would allow the use-of-force investigation to continue, but avoided answering questions about whether anything in the video implicates him. He said police plan to press charges against the teenager after he is released from the hospital.
Vittorio said an officer pulled over a car around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday that smelled like marijuana and had no front license plate. Officers searched the driver, who complied, but when they asked the teenager in the back seat to get out, he “looked nervous and had a bag of accessories slung over his shoulder,” Vittorio said.
When the police started searching him, he started running. After a brief chase, officers tackled him to the ground outside a McDonald’s restaurant, where he tried to open the bag, prompting them to use “control tactics” to free his hands from the bag, Vittorio said.
“They had reasonable suspicions that he was armed with a weapon in that bag, and he didn’t comply and tried to open that bag,” Vittorio said. “They feared for their safety.”
Officers then “drove stunned” him and took him into custody, Vittorio said, referring to deploying a stun gun without firing its rounds. They took a semi-automatic gun from the bag, which was loaded with three rounds, Vittorio said.
He said officers suspected the teenager had a weapon based on how he reached for the bag during the chase and fight, which turned it into a “deadly force incident.”
“If the offender had drawn that weapon, he could have shot them,” Vittorio said. “Should they have waited for him to pull it out?”
One of them, a field training officer, has been with the department for 12 years and the other has been there for six, according to Vittorio.
Department Chief Gerald Vetter, a department spokesman, declined to answer additional questions from The Washington Post on Friday, citing the ongoing investigation.
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Rehab said the officers’ account of being threatened by the gun “defies logic” and that they would have needed “extrasensory perception” to know Abu Atella was armed.
“He wasn’t brandishing the gun. He didn’t arm him. He didn’t hold it – they weren’t under threat,” he said. “This is not one of those cases where someone runs around with a gun in their hands.
Rehab said police-Arab community relations are already “in dire need of improvement” in Oak Lawn, where 7 percent of the population is of Arab descent, according to the Census Bureau.
“From what we hear from the local community, they don’t feel well protected and respected by the police,” he said.
As police held their press conference Thursday, Abu Atela’s family and supporters gathered outside. His mother, Dena Natur, told CBS Chicago that the officers’ actions amounted to a “beating to death.”
“He has fractures all over his face, he’s bruised, he’s in the hospital right now with a neck brace,” Natur said. “Why did the police, over 300 pounds, attack my son, who is only 115 pounds? Why did they do what they did? It is not necessary, it is not necessary and it is not acceptable.
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