Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist
Chicago, IL — An utterly horrifying video, taken from Marshall High School surveillance cameras in January, has been released showing a massive Chicago cop, shove a girl down a flight of stair, punch her in the face, taser her multiple times, and stomp on her head. Proving the unnecessary and sadistic intent behind the officer’s actions, the 16-year-old girl had committed no crime.
In January, when the incident originally happened, the officer claimed the girl initiated violence against him and that he had no other choice but to taker her out. Now that the entire video has been released, we see that this claim is not true.
The victim, 16-year-old Dnigma Howard has since filed a lawsuit after the two cops savagely beat her for no reason.
“The Board of Education and CPD continue to fail our children. An unarmed 16-year-old girl was beaten, kicked, punched and tasered by officers,” the girl’s attorney, Andrew M. Stroth said in a statement.
The false claims filed against Howard are nothing short of criminal and almost led to ruining her life.
As the Chicago Sun Times reports, at her initial hearing, prosecutors said the officers were called to escort Dnigma off the school’s premises after she was suspended, but she refused to leave the building and kicked, bit and spit on the officers. Police said her actions led the three of them to fall down a flight of stairs, causing all three to be treated at local hospitals.
In Dnigma’s arrest report, the officers said she “became irate and initiated a physical altercation with the officers.”
But these were lies.
“Those officers filed a false statement,” Stroth said. “Their statements are completely untrue and are completely contradicted by what is shown on the video. The saving grace for Dnigma is that this was caught on camera.”
After the incident, Howard was charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery against the police officers. She could have gone to jail for a long time over these charges. Luckily for her however, the video showed the truth.
“Once again the city of Chicago is facing a federal civil rights lawsuit based on the unjustified and unconstitutional actions of two officers,” Stroth told Buzzfeed news. “It’s a clear failure of the leadership of the city of Chicago, the Board of Education, and the Chicago Police Department when you have an unarmed 16-year-old girl without cause or provocation kicked, punched, beaten, thrown down stairs, and then tasered three times by the officers.”
Adding insult to injury is the fact that Howard’s father was at the school and he had to watch as his daughter was horrifically beaten. As he yelled at police to stop, they yelled back at him to get back and he did—a level of restraint that most fathers would not have shown.
The Chicago police department has all but gone to bat for the officers, releasing a statement noting that it holds officers “to the highest level of professional standards” and that it would “remain guided by the facts of the investigation.”
“Due to the fact that this incident is currently under the jurisdiction of COPA for the purpose of an independent investigation, we cannot comment on the specifics of the incident or the investigation,” the statement said.
The one positive outcome of the case so far is that both officers have been removed from the school. However, they are both still employed.
Highlighting the outrageous problem within the current American education/police state is the fact that Howard is a good student and this entire interaction began over her using a cellphone in class—like millions of other good students do every day.
As the Times reports:
Prior to the altercation, Dnigma Howard had been directed to leave campus because of a student conduct issue, “specifically having her cell phone out in class,” according to the complaint filed in court.
The school contacted Laurentio Howard to pick her up after she completed her finals. A school security officer then began to escort Dnigma out of the school, but she asked to speak to the assistant principal to discuss completing her exams, the complaint said.
But the security officer insisted that she leave, according to the complaint, prompting Pierre and Tripp to approach the girl and ultimately push her toward the staircase.
Below is a video showing what years of training police officers to solve problems with violence instead of common sense looks like. Shocking indeed—especially considering these cops were dealing with a child.