video shows chicago police dragging, stepping on, tasing student

Recently released surveillance footage taken at a Chicago high school shows police officers push and drag a female student, 16-year-old Dnigma Howard, down a flight of stairs then punched and stepping on her and tasing her with a stun gun. The reason behind these actions? As usual, the actual footage of the interaction contradicts the officers’ original statement on how things unfolded. Including accusing the student of inciting violence first. Which wasn’t true.

“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,” Howard’s lawyer Andrew M. Stroth said in a statement.

The amended lawsuit filed by Stroth accuses the city of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, and Johnnie Pierre and Sherry Tripp of violating Howard’s civil rights. Initially, Enigma was charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery against the officers, but those charges were dropped less than a week later “in the interest of justice,” prosecutors said during the initial hearing. They also said that police were called to escort Dnigma off campus after she had been suspended and refused to leave the school. In the original arrest report claimed that she “became irate and initiated a physical altercation with the officers.”

“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.”

Many other victims of police brutality aren’t so lucky.