ATTORNEY: VIDEO SHOWS COP PUNCHING HANDCUFFED MAN
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is investigating a Chicago police officer who was shown on video apparently punching a handcuffed black man in the back of the head after the man fell on a sidewalk, the man’s attorney said.
Officers had been called to Keeler Avenue in West Garfield Park around 11 p.m. Friday after a tip of a person with a gun.
There, Sterlin Boston, 28, was seen by police officers “gambling on the sidewalk,” Cook County prosecutors said during Boston’s bond court hearing Saturday.
Boston did not match the description of the gunman, Assistant State’s Attorney Emily Czerniejewski said.
As officers tried to take Boston — now handcuffed — into custody, a small crowd formed around the officers, resulting in some shoving by those gathered and the police, the video shows.
After officers push away one man, Boston and one of the two officers fell onto a grassy area next to the road, with Boston’s face landing on the edge of the sidewalk, the video shows.
The officer then punched Boston three times in the back of the head while holding him down, Boston’s attorney says.
CPD released a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday announcing the COPA investigation.
The Sun-Times obtained the video from David Gaeger, Boston’s attorney, who said it was filmed at the scene by a person who requested anonymity. The video circulated on some social media platforms Friday night.
According to the police report presented during Saturday’s bond court hearing, Boston tried to break away once and later kicked an officer “three times in the shin” during the scuffle.
Gaeger denied those claims when reached Sunday, calling them “phantom kicks” and saying the video proves they did not occur.
In addition to the initial misdemeanor gambling charge, Boston picked up a felony charge of aggravated battery to a peace officer for the alleged kicking.
He was also charged with felony possession of a controlled substance — police at the station found a small bag of suspected heroin on his person, according to the police report — and a resisting arrest misdemeanor. Boston asked repeatedly why he was being arrested but was never given a reason at the scene, and he had preexisting wounds on his hands that began to bleed because of the handcuffs, Gaeger said during the hearing.
Boston is a Glenbard South High School graduate and current Home Depot forklift operator with two children, Gaeger said. Friday’s incident happened in front of his own residence, Gaeger said.
Court records show Boston was arrested last June for aggravated discharge of a firearm and released on bail in February.
On Saturday, Judge Charles Beach held Boston on $10,000 bail for the new charges and temporarily without bail for violating bond conditions in the previous case. He will have a violation of bail bond hearing Monday, Gaeger said.
The chairman of the City Council’s Education Committee says McCormick Place, Navy Pier, Park District fieldhouses and public libraries could be used as alternate sites to safely reopen Chicago Public Schools this fall.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot is determined to reopen the Chicago Public Schools on time this fall but do it safely, perhaps by using staggered schedules to maintain social distance and limit the number of students in classrooms at any given time.
She has promised to be creative in crafting plans in concert with neighborhood leaders, perhaps by using community centers as alternate learning sites.
Now, Lightfoot’s handpicked Education Committee chairman is being really creative — by suggesting the massive McCormick Place complex.
McCormick Place can’t host conventions until there’s a vaccine for the coronavirus or a “highly effective treatment widely available” or the elimination of any new cases over a sustained period.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever watched ‘Shameless.’ But on ‘Shameless,’ they model McCormick Place as a university that people come in and use because of its beauty,” Ald. Michael Scott Jr. (24th) told the Sun-Times on Thursday.
When a reporter suggested McCormick Place as a possible alternate site for inclassroom learning while maintaining social distance, Scott called it a “great idea” that should be explored.
“Navy Pier also has convention hall space that may be able to be used. The Park District may be an opportunity because there are a lot of [fieldhouses] that are close to schools. Libraries may be another option. And then you have big facilities like McCormick Place,” Scott said.
“The problem, though, is the ratio of teachers to students. If the science dictates that there can only be a certain amount of children, then you can’t split a teacher in half and make a teacher be in two places at one time.”
Scott said he has asked CPS to have “more regular dialogue” with students, their parents and teachers to “talk about their concerns about reopening” with an eye toward “putting a comprehensive plan in place” that suits as many students as possible.
“There are going to be some potholes,” Scott said, but the goal needs to be making sure “students, parents, teachers, faculty feel comfortable about being in a situation where we’re reopening.”
McCormick Place spokeswoman Cynthia McCafferty was taken aback by the idea of turning the convention complex into an alternate school site. During the pandemic, the convention hall was converted into an overflow hospital site that went almost entirely unused.
“This is the first we have heard of the idea. We would need further information in order to determine feasibility,” she wrote in an email to the Sun-Times.
Scott acknowledged potential complications involving the many trade unions that keep the convention complex up and running.
“I know there is a lot of space there that is underutilized, and it is something that may work. [But] I don’t know what the numbers look like because, once you open up McCormick, you’ve got a lot of union issues,” he said.
Remote learning has been an uneven and dubious replacement for in-person instruction and has left scores of students entirely disconnected from their teachers, according to long-awaited data released by CPS last month.
Fewer than 60% of all CPS students are engaging with online remote learning three or more days per week.
Scott was not at all surprised by those results, which made a school year disrupted by an 11-day teachers strike even worse.
“I’ve got three children. And it is much better to have them sitting in class in front of teachers if the science dictates that that’s going to happen,” he said.
“But we have to be careful. We don’t want a spike. We don’t want our children sick. We don’t want our teachers sick.”