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Leroy Kennedy, of Chicago, said he was walking down the street “minding his own business” when two police officers violently arrested him, leaving bruises on his face.
Kennedy, a black man, is now suing the Chicago Police Department, claiming that police body camera video shows he didn’t break any laws when he was arrested last August.
“We demand justice for Mr. Kennedy. We will also be shining the spotlight on the corrosive “us versus them” mentality that the Chicago police are adopting in many black and Latino neighborhoods, ”his attorney, Christopher Smith, said in a statement.
Body camera footage was posted by Smith and does not include audio within the first few minutes. The sound begins after Kennedy’s arrest.
In the video, Constables Ridgner and Abramson run towards Kennedy and stop him as he walks on the sidewalk. It seems Kennedy and the officers are exchanging words and one of the officers, a black man, slams Kennedy against a brick wall.
The officer is then seen in the video leading Kennedy to the ground as the second officer attempts 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 drive him a short distance to another location and call for an ambulance.
Smith said on Saturday he wasn’t sure exactly what his client and the police were saying to each other, but the arrest was not warranted.
According to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Wednesday, Constables Ridgner and Abramson were patrolling the western part of the city around 5:30 p.m. when they arrested Kennedy. The suit says Kennedy “minded his sidewalk business” and “didn’t break any laws.”
He says Kennedy sustained head and wrist injuries and was treated in hospital.
After the arrest, the police “agreed on what to do,” says the trial.
“In an illegal effort to justify their frightening attack on Mr. Kennedy, the accused officers created false reports which claimed that Mr. Kennedy had committed several criminal batteries against them,” he said.
According to a police report provided to NBC News by Smith, officers wrote that they arrested Kennedy because he was looking directly at them, stiffening his body and dilating his eyes.
“Kennedy adjusted his hands and manipulated his front knee area,” the officers wrote, saying they thought Kennedy may have been carrying a gun.
The police report says Kennedy waved his arms at Ridgner and yelled at him not to touch him.
Kennedy was arrested on two counts of resisting arrest and one count of aggravated assault of a police officer. The charges were dropped in December.
The lawsuit says the charges were dropped because “there was no case” against Kennedy.
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement on Saturday: “We cannot comment on pending or proposed litigation.” The agency did not respond to questions about whether Constables Ridgner and Abramson were being disciplined following the arrest.
Agents could not be reached at the phone numbers listed for them.
Smith said on Saturday his client had suffered trauma since the incident. He filed a lawsuit because he wants the police department to be held to account for the arrest and to treat the way their officers treat people on the west and south sides of Chicago, who are mainly minority areas.
“We want the city, whether it’s the mayor or the police, to look ahead to how officers are getting to these neighborhoods with a plan to be ‘us versus them’,” Smith said. “We want it to stop at a global level.”
Kennedy is asking for compensatory damages because the officers “acted in a malicious, senseless or oppressive manner.”
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