Crooked police officers continue to show their true colors and their disdain for Black people as Hammond, Indiana gestapo continue with their rogue tactics. Lisa Mahone and Jamal Jones are suing the police department after claiming video shows a routine traffic stop turning “highly aggressive” with officers shattering a car window and using a stun gun on Jones, a passenger in the vehicle. Jones and Mahone held a news conference today with their attorney Dana Kurtz and stated that their “civil rights were just thrown out the window.”
The incident occurred on September 24 and was recorded by Mahone’s 14-year-old son Joseph Ivy who was sitting in the backseat with his 7-year-old sister JaNiya. According to court documents, Mahone said she was pulled over by police for not wearing her seatbelt as she was headed to Cook County hospital in Chicago to see her dying mother who has since died. Hammond is right outside of Chicago.
A gun was also pulled on the family as Mahone was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher detailing the incident as they were afraid to exit the vehicle. Mahone stated, “I’m really in a state of shock. It felt like I was just like, it felt like, it felt like it was nothing but gang bangers around me.”
According to ABC News, Mahone and Jones allege in their complaint that Officers Patrick Vicari and Charles Turner were “highly aggressive” during the traffic stop. They said the officers requested Mahone’s identification but also Jones’. Because he did not have a driver’s license, according to the complaint, Jones offered a piece of paper that included his information but the officers declined. According to the complaint, when Jones refused to leave the vehicle because he and Mahone felt they were in “imminent danger,” officers smashed the passenger-side window and used a stun gun on him. Jones was arrested and later charged with resisting law enforcement. Mahone received a citation for not wearing her seatbelt and was let go.
Kurtz, their lawyer, said the officers had no right to ask Jones to exit the car unless they had probable cause. “These officers engaged in excessive force and were completely unreasonable. There was absolutely no basis to engage in the conduct that they did or to arrest [Jones.]“
In what appears to be a cover up, the Hammond Police Department released a statement that said, “The first officer during the traffic stop had seen the passenger in the car “drop his left hand behind the center console. Fearing for officer safety, the first officer ordered the passenger to show his hands and then repeatedly asked him to exit the vehicle. The passenger continued to refuse to exit the vehicle after approximately thirteen minutes had elapsed and upon request by at least three different officers present at the scene of the stop. Fearing the occupants of the vehicle may have possessed a weapon, and seeing the passenger repeatedly reach towards the rear seats of the vehicle, the first officer then broke the passenger side window of the vehicle and the passenger was removed from the vehicle and was placed under arrest.”
The statement however doesn’t mention that a gun was never found in the vehicle. The complaint stated that Vicari and Turner had been named in four previous federal lawsuits – three for Vicari; and Turner, one — involving “the use of excessive force against citizens and arresting citizens without probable cause.” Confidential settlements ended the previous litigation. In each case, the city and the individual officers denied the allegations prior to settlement.
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