Officer Robert Smith Beats Up 11 yr-old on the Play Ground

[WaTcHeR]

Did an off-duty Chicago Police officer abuse his power when he settled a playground dispute by allegedly attacking an 11-year-old?

That's what the boy's mother, Donna Moore, believes happened last Saturday when the angry father stormed the Kellogg School playground.

Moore and several people who witnessed the incident have filed a complaint with the Office of Professional Standards alleging that Officer Robert Smith used excessive force against the 11-year-old.

Monique Bond, director of police News Affairs, confirmed that the incident is under investigation.

"I was hysterical," said Moore, who ran to the playground at 92nd and Leavitt in Beverly when her 13-year-old daughter called from a cell phone.

"A deranged-looking man had my son in a chokehold and held my son in front of him like a shield," Moore said. "I was screaming for him to let my son go. He finally takes one hand away and holds out a police badge."

Apparently, the incident -- which ended with the 11-year-old and his 13-year-old sister handcuffed and charged with battery -- started with a shove.


Don't touch someone else's child

Who shoved whom first is in dispute.

Still, most parents have been there. Their son or daughter runs home and says someone jumped them, and the parent goes looking for the alleged assailant. But most parents have learned the hard way that it is unwise to get directly involved in childhood squabbles.

Even in bullying situations, the best course of action is to inform the bully's parent and ask them to intervene. If that doesn't work, then call in a higher authority like a school official or youth officer. It is never OK for adults to physically touch someone else's child.

The most violent confrontations between neighbors often start with conflicts between children. Things get a lot more complicated when the parent is a cop.

"The police officer should not have intervened," a police source told me. "You don't do that."

By the time Smith identified himself as a Chicago Police officer, two uniformed police officers from the 22nd District had arrived on the scene.

"This man was telling the police officers to arrest my son while they were trying to find out what happened. When they couldn't make a decision, a sergeant was called," Moore said.

"The officers finally handcuffed my son and put him in a patrol car," Moore said. "Smith wouldn't even talk to them. He was just barking orders. Then the sergeant comes up and talks to Smith and decides to arrest my children."

The 11-year-old was charged with battery. His 13-year-old sister was charged with battery to a police officer after Smith claimed she hit him when he was trying to restrain her brother.

"They told me they were taking my kids to 111th and Longwood, but they wouldn't tell me at that time what they were charged with," Moore said.


Cop's son allegedly pushed

The mother was at the police station from 6 p.m. Saturday to about 2 a.m. Sunday, reportedly because the report supporting the charges against the two children was rejected several times.

"As far as I was concerned Smith attacked my children, but I wasn't allowed to make any complaint against him. I finally ended up talking to a captain who told me that Smith claimed my son and his son had some kind of altercation on the playground. His son said my son pushed him.

"I couldn't believe that this police officer came out on the playground and attacked my son based on something like that," Moore said.

Because of the charges, Moore said she wasn't allowed to file a complaint against Smith. However, witnesses on the scene apparently filed complaints accusing the officer of using excessive force. The Office of Professional Standards is investigating those complaints.

"Right now, my son is afraid to go outside of the house," Moore said. "He's scared that the police officer is out there. He's an 11-year-old, 100-pound boy and he's so scared he's sleeping in bed with me."

I can understand why some parents in Beverly may be concerned about their children's safety, given the brutal assault last summer by three teens on young heart patient Ryan Rusch.

But this wasn't that kind of situation.

If Smith grabbed an 11-year-old boy, roughed him up, and had him arrested because of a playground scuffle -- he crossed the line that separates concerned parents from dangerous ones.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/3 ... -NWS-mitch

[WaTcHeR]

Is officer who allegedly beat boy fit to serve?

He's not if he used excessive force on kid at playground


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?


Witness shocked by the scene
But a Beverly resident who happened to be driving past the scene last Saturday witnessed the officer's alleged abuse.
"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.


Officers handcuff 11-year-old
The first officers on the scene were black females, Vaughn said.
"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."


'They need to be stopped'
Obviously, parents in Beverly have safety concerns. Last summer, Ryan Rusch, a white boy, was brutally beaten in a neighborhood park by three young black males who lived outside of the neighborhood.
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."


Excessive force?
If Smith, who is a detective, used excessive force against an 11-year-old, he's not fit for the Police Department.
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.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/3 ... 10.article

[WaTcHeR]

Donna Moore didn't want to talk on the phone long Thursday morning.

"Look, I am not trying to be rude, but I am on my way to find some help for my son," Moore told Defender in a highly emotional voice.

"He is traumatized and doesn't want to come out of the house. He hasn't gotten over what happened."

Moore referred to the incident Saturday between her 11-year-old son and white off-duty Chicago police Officer Robert Smith on a playground in the exclusive upper-middle class neighborhood of Beverly on the South Side.

According to two witnesses who spoke to the Defender, Smith pounced upon and physically attacked the little boy, who is African American, after the boy was allegedly in a shoving match earlier with Smith's son.

Only after passersby intervened and tried to get Smith off of the boy, did he identify himself as a police officer, witnesses said.

The end result: the 11-year-old boy and his 13-year-old sister - who also tried to get Smith off of her brother - were handcuffed and arrested. Moore's son was charged with battery, and her daughter was charged with battery on a police officer.

Marcos Resendiz, 26, of the far South Side, told the Defender Thursday that he witnessed the whole incident of Smith attacking Moore's son, but the police Office of Professional Standards have yet to seek him out or interview him to tell what he saw.

Resendiz said Moore's children didn't hit the officer.

"I didn't see (the 13-year-old girl) hit him; I did see the officer put his hands on her," Resendiz said. "And the boy was too busy with a face full of grass and on the ground to do anything. The boy is a little skinny kid with glasses. I couldn't believe it."

"When I approached (Smith), he said he was an off-duty police officer, but in my mind I was thinking how could he be a police officer if he was crazy enough to do this to a little boy," Resendiz continued. "I didn't intervene because I thought if he is a police officer and would do this to a little boy, what might he do to me? I was trying to calm him down and I was saying, 'what you are doing is wrong.

You shouldn't be doing that. You can't do that because that's a kid.' And he asked me if I was an attorney."

Resendiz is an Information Technology administrator for a company in Chicago.

Another witness to the incident, Corliss Vaughn, also told the Defender Thursday that Smith did all the attacking.

"He (the boy) was pent down, he couldn't hit him," Vaughn said. "As for the sister, I only know that she was trying to get the man off of her brother. I can't say that she hit him.

Everything happened so fast. But I know she was trying to get the man off of her brother. The man did hit the boy."

Vaughn said the police did talk to her Saturday night and on Monday about what she saw.

The Chicago police did not respond to Defender requests regarding where it's at in the investigation of the incident.

Resendiz, who is Hispanic, said he definitely believe race was a factor in the incident.

"The kids, their mother and another witness were the only Blacks out there," Resendiz said.

"There were other adult witnesses out there, but they were all white.

They didn't do or say anything. And then, there was one white lady who rode up in a SUV, and you could see that she had a gun. I don't know, but I don't think she was there for the Black kids."

Resendiz said a pair uniformed police officers eventually arrived at the scene. They didn't arrest the kids. But then plainclothes officers arrived, who seemed to know Smith. Resendiz told both sets of officers what he witnessed. The plainclothes officers, all white men, arrested Moore's kids.

"The one plainclothes officer, I think his name was Ed, seemed to have known the guy who attacked the kids," Resendiz said. "He (Ed) told me because the officer (Smith) told him what had happened that he had to take his word. And my response was, 'but that's a kid.' It wasn't right."

"That officer (Smith) looked crazed and he was acting erratically and wasn't thinking clearly," Resendiz added.

"Three other people were there, and they didn't say anything at all. When it was all said and done, the other three witnesses seemed to agree that the man was out of order, but they didn't say anything (to police officers) and let the kids get arrested. Two just left as the kids were being arrested. They all were white."

Moore said she is searching for an attorney, but right now her priority is trying to help her son get through his nightmarish ordeal.

"There are two separate issues that have to be worked out," Moore said. "One is that they filed charges against us. The other issue would be the issue of the OPS investigation of excessive force. I'm trying to get the right fit (for a lawyer), but the well-being of my son comes first."

Resendiz said he's not surprised at all about what Moore's son may be going through.

"That is one of the major things I pointed out to the cop," Resendiz said. "You can forget the negligence, but what he did to that little boy will probably traumatize him for life."


http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/loc ... cleID=9331