The Cook County sheriff’s office will continue reviewing whether to investigate a white off-duty Lansing police officer captured on video pinning a black teen on the ground, an official said Wednesday night.
Cara Smith, the chief policy officer for Tom Dart, had earlier said the office had “insufficient evidence” to pursue an investigation after officials reviewed police reports, conducted witness interviews, and watched the video of the June 24 incident.
She added that they attempted to interview the alleged victim, Jordan Brunson, but were not able to talk to him.
But on Wednesday night, Smith said Brunson’s lawyer had set up a meeting between the teen and the sheriff’s office.
Illinois State Police officials said they previously received a request from the Lansing mayor’s office but did not take the case because it did not meet their investigative criteria.
Brunson’s attorney, Andrew M. Stroth, has been critical of the officer involved in the case.
Lansing police said the officer’s contact with Brunson. 15, started after a caller told a police dispatcher at about 3:45 p.m. Saturday that about 30 juveniles were fighting near the officer’s home.
Brunson was near the incident, but was not part of it, his lawyer said.
The fight ended before officers arrived, according to the police statement. But officials said they saw about 30 juveniles in the area. A 12-year-old black boy told officers he also was in the area when a white teen gave him a beverage that might have contained drugs, the report said.
Eventually, the 12-year-old youth’s older brother had a “physical altercation” that resulted in a white male being repeatedly struck in the face, police said.
Officials added that the off-duty officer told them that he discovered a backpack containing “a baseball hat and a realistic looking BB gun” in his backyard.
The officer eventually encountered the white teen who was bleeding from his face, police said.
Brunson, who said the teen is one of his best friends, approached them to check on the injured teen as he spoke with the officer on his front lawn. As he and the other youth began to leave the officer’s home, Brunson said the man told the boys to halt, but they didn’t.
The white officer then pinned him to the ground during the incident that was captured on video and posted to social media, Brunson said. At one point, the video shows, the officer threatened to kill the youth.
In a report recently obtained by the Daily Southtown, the unnamed officer said that he saw the injured white teen and sat him on his front porch after the teen asked him for help. The teen also told him that he “jokingly” said to a friend that he put Xanax in the 12-year-old’s drink, which then led to the physical altercation.
The officer added that a black male, who was Brunson, began “running towards us in an aggressive manner.” After telling the teens that police were arriving and they should stay on his property, the officer said the black male stated he and the white teen were going to leave.
The officer said he told the boys to stay again. He said after that moment, the teen “started to come at me, in an aggressive manner, like he was going to strike me and came very close to me.”
“Fearing the male black would attack me and I was unsure if he had any weapons, I grabbed him in the middle of his sweatshirt and pulled him on the ground,” the officer recalled.
He said he continued to detain the teen until officers arrived.
Lansing police officials said their investigation is ongoing, and offered no further comment on its status.
gporterjr@tronc.com
