Officer who Allegedly Beat Boy Fit To Be On Duty?
A lot of heat is taking place in Chicago and I don't mean the weather. Crime, corruption, beatings, drugs and scams have become the norm among Chicago's finest. As the city looks for a new Chief perhaps the candidates should be asked to submit a plan addressing police corruption. In Mary Mitchell's column today, she sights yet another episode of cops behaving badly. We all need officer's to serve and protect. But when they commit the crime it reflects poorly on those officers who take pride in wearing a badge of honor and doing a great job.
Detective Robert Smith of the Chicago Police Department appears to be a good example of what's wrong with the culture of law enforcement in this city.
Despite two recent videotaped beatings of Chicago citizens, Smith, who works in the Harrison District, allegedly punched an 11-year-old boy after Smith's son complained he had been shoved on the playground.
Smith, who lives in Beverly, is white; the boy he is accused of abusing also lives in Beverly and is black.
In fact, on the day of the incident, the boy was the only black male on the playground at Kellogg school.
I wanted to give the police officer the benefit of the doubt. After all, who could be crazy enough to abuse his or her police power in the wake of the two similar police scandals still being investigated by the Office of Professional Standards?
"This white, off-duty police officer was on top of this boy and had him pinned to the ground," said Corliss Vaughn, an administrator with the Chicago Public Schools.
"And the boy's sister was yelling and screaming: 'Let my brother go.'"
Vaughn said she was so shocked by the scene, she jumped out of her car and left it running in the street.
"I was appalled by what I was seeing," she told me in an interview Tuesday. "The little boy was screaming and trying to get away, and every time he raised his head, the officer punched him."
Vaughn let the boy's 13-year-old sister use her cell phone to call the children's mother, and at least one other person who witnessed the scene called 911.
"They were trying to ascertain what happened, and the off-duty police officer was yelling for them to arrest the boy and his sister.
Then, two white police officers showed up who appeared to know the off-duty police officer. They immediately handcuffed the little boy."
Similar to what the boy's mother told me Monday, Vaughn said a police sergeant also showed up at the scene and made the decision to arrest the boy and his sister.
"I could not believe what I was seeing, and I am the mother of three kids," Vaughn said. "I have lived in Beverly for 20 years. I felt that whatever the young man did, he did not deserve that. The boy didn't appear to be a thug. He looked like a little boy."
Still, that doesn't give police officers the right to beat up and manhandle young black males who are accused of doing something wrong.
The 11-year-old was charged with battery in an incident that amounted to a playground scuffle. His 13-year-old sister was charged with battery to a police officer because she attempted to intervene in the attack.
Vaughn said that after the officers put the boy and his sister in a patrol car, they started drilling other kids in the playground about what happened.
"They need to be stopped. Just because you have a badge, that doesn't give you the right to abuse a child. If I was seen punching my child like that, I would have been arrested for child abuse."
But what about the two white officers who didn't bother to question any witnesses, or talk to the mother, before deciding that an 11-year-old should be thrown in a squad car?
And what about the sergeant who came out to the scene and took an angry father's word that the boy pushed his son even though the father didn't witness the alleged assault?
They don't appear to be fit to serve Chicago citizens, either. Source:BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist
