A video of a White suburban Illinois police officer pinning down an African-American teen and threatening to kill him for trespassing has gone viral, WGN reports.
On Saturday, a couple of teen boys got into an altercation with another group of boys. While they were able to get away, they found themselves entangled in yet another unexpected fight.
“You guys are on my f—ing property!” an off-duty Lansing, Ill., officer says in the video while pinning Jordan Brunson, 15, to the ground with his knee and hand on the boy’s neck.
“Let me go!” the teen can be heard in the footage.
“No, you are on my f—ing property. I could f—ing kill you,” the officer says.
Jordan’s friend captured the incident via cellphone video, whom the officer then directs his attention to.
“Tell your friend to come here right now,” the officer says.
At one point, a woman walks outside of the home and tells the teens, “You guys came to the wrong house.”
That was moments after Jordan discloses that he was attempting to help his friend who was sitting on the officer’s porch. He had been beaten up pretty badly earlier that afternoon.
On Monday evening, Jordan spoke with WGN.
“I was examining him. I was going to go tell his grandmother,” Jordan said.
Jordan said that was when the officer came out of nowhere and grabbed them. He says the officer did not ask them what they were doing on his property, nor did he identify himself as a cop.
The video was posted by Lashawnya Brunson, Jordan’s aunt. She is outraged at the officer’s behavior.
“If he wasn’t an officer, just a regular man, would they do the same thing? No, he’d be locked up,” she said.
The officer has not commented on the incident, but the Lansing Police Department released the following statement:
“An off-duty Lansing police officer, outside on his personal property, became involved when he was approached by two other subjects involved in the fight. One of the juveniles had visible minor injuries, and the other was temporarily detained for further investigation until the arrival of on-duty officers.”
But according to Jordan, neither he nor his friend was approached at any time by police. He says the officer in question let him up when on-duty officials arrived. A police report was filed by Jordan’s family, who wants the officer charged.
Story developing.
