Responding to reports of a woman in mental distress, Round Lake Beach officers placed a young woman in a gurney only to punch her in the face three times.
The chief calls the video “disturbing” but claims the officer was acting within departmental policy.
Video captured by Angela Heath captures the moments after a woman is strapped into a gurney. As a half a dozen people look on, an officer punches the woman in the face three times.
“They just punched her in the face! What the fuck??” yells Angela towards the officers. “Yo I got that all on video bro!”
The officer then points to his leg claiming that she bit him.
According to dispatch recordings from Saturday evening, a call was made relating to a suicidal woman on the lake front area of Round Lake Beach, a small town just north of Chicago.
According to police, officers and fire personnel came into contact with “a person experiencing a mental health crisis.”
The video depicts a far too common trend of police dispatched to calls for service that require mental health professionals rather than government agents whose solution to everything is brute force.
While police claim the officer’s actions fall within departmental policy it is a departure from local police regulation Sec. 4-1-8 that states the following:
“In the performance of his (officers) duty, he must maintain decorum and attention, command of temper, patience and discretion.”
“We want him to be disciplined,” said Pastor Julie Contreras in an interview with the Chicago Daily Herald. “It would show to this community that this type of behavior is unacceptable.”
“Did you tape the part where she bit me in the leg? See the bite mark?” the officer says in another video but then refuses to show any wound when Heath, who is recording, requests to see it. The officer also refused to identify himself however Heath did capture the number 277 which was visible on the back of his departmentally issued hat.
In a statement released by Round Lake Beach police, an independent investigation will be conducted on the incident, however local activists don’t think that is enough.
“It was unnecessary force. … He just needed to pull away from her. She was not latched on to him, she did not rip his pants, she did not rip his skin,” said Contrerars who has since filed a complaint with the Department of Justice requesting an emergency investigation into the Round Lake Beach Police Department.
