The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 75/No. 18      May 9, 2011

 
Chicago cop indicted for
beating handcuffed youth
 
BY JOHN HAWKINS  
CHICAGO—A cop who beat a nineteen-year-old youth here while fellow cops watched has been charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct. Police Sergeant Edward Howard Jr., appeared in court April 15 in the beating of Gregory Jeffries last October 11.

The beating took place at a takeout restaurant on the city’s South Side. The entire incident was captured on surveillance video and clearly shows Howard striking Jeffries in the face several times as about half a dozen cops stood around and did nothing to protect the youth. Jeffries’s hands were cuffed behind his back. Both Jeffries and Howard are African American.

Cops originally charged Jeffries with criminal trespass but dropped the charges last December.

The incident made headlines here last October when it happened. Jeffries, a student at Kennedy King College, said that on October 11, as he walked out of King Gyro restaurant at 79th Street and South Vincennes Avenue, seven or eight police cars pulled up. He was suddenly arrested and put in handcuffs.

“I asked, ‘What am I getting arrested for?’ and one of them hit me in the chest,” said Jeffries.

He said a female officer asked him where he lived, then “smacked” his hat off his head. Jeffries said Howard then came over. “[The sergeant] hit me about four or five times, busted my top and bottom lip,” Jeffries said.

Cops originally claimed Jeffries spat on one of them. That claim was revised at Howard’s arraignment. They now claim that Jeffries was preparing to spit at one of them, and that they knew this because he cleared his throat.

“My momma asked if I spit on the officers and I said, ‘No, where did that come from?’ If they did say that, they’re lying, because none of that happened,” said Jeffries.

Former police superintendent Jody Weiss suspended the police powers of Howard and a number of the officers who failed to intervene and placed them on administrative duty pending the outcome of a police investigation.

Jeffries has filed suit in federal court against the Chicago Police Department, charging excessive force, assault and battery, false arrest, false imprisonment, failure to intervene, denial of medical attention, and malicious prosecution.
 
 
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