Comment Police in a Chicago suburb repeatedly punched a vulnerable teenager in the head after fleeing a traffic stop Wednesday, leaving him hospitalized with internal bleeding, a family spokesman said. A bystander video, which has been widely shared on Facebook, begins after the teenager is on the ground and shows two officers punching the teenager’s legs and face at least 10 times. An officer can be seen pressing the teenager’s head into the concrete as he punches him several times in the face. Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, identified the boy as Hadi Abu Atelah, 17, rising high school senior. Abu Atela suffered a broken nose, internal bleeding on his forehead and brain cavity and bruises all over his body, according to Rehab. He was in stable condition at a hospital Friday afternoon, Rehab said. Oak Lawn, Ill., Police Chief Daniel Vittorio defended the officers’ actions, saying at a news conference Thursday that “deadly force” was justified because the teenager was reaching for a bag, which police said he later recovered a loaded pistol. Vittorio said officers had “reasonable suspicions” that Abu Atelah was armed, based on movements during the pursuit and capture. Police released dashcam video Thursday showing Abu Atela running from the car and officers throwing punches during the struggle before using a stun gun. Oak Lawn police do not wear body cameras. The use of force is being investigated internally — as is protocol after any use of force — but officers are returning to work, Vittorio said. An officer who was also injured he went to a hospital, but Vittorio declined to elaborate on the officer’s injuries. Rehab — whose organization is representing the family in the civil rights portion of the case while another attorney is handling the criminal aspect — said he recognizes that police have the right to use force to subdue an uncooperative suspect, but that the force in this case was “Unwarranted and excessive”. He noted that Abu Atelah weighs 115 kilograms. “We think this is a classic case of excessive force, brutal force, that was unnecessary,” Rehab said. “If they had just handcuffed his wrists once he was on the ground and proceeded professionally, I don’t think we’d be here.” Rehab said the family is asking for “appropriate disciplinary action” for the officers and a review of their training. The officers should be suspended until the investigation is complete, Rehab said. Body cam video shows Louisiana trooper hitting black man with flashlight 18 times: ‘I’m not resisting!’ At Thursday’s press conference, where authorities released the dashcam footage, Vittorio said he would allow the use-of-force investigation to continue, but declined to answer questions about whether anything in the video involved him. He said police plan to file charges against the teenager once he is released from the hospital. Vittorio said an officer pulled over a car around 5:30 Wednesday afternoon that smelled of marijuana and had no license plate. Officers searched the driver, who complied, but when they asked the teenager in the back seat to get out, “he appeared to be nervous and had an accessory bag slung over his shoulder,” Vittorio said. As the police began searching for him, took off running. After a brief chase, officers took him to the ground outside a McDonald’s restaurant, where he tried to open the bag, prompting them to use “control tactics” to free his hands from the bag, Vittorio said. “They had reasonable suspicion that he was armed with a weapon in that bag and he was not complying and trying to open that bag,” Vittorio said. “They feared for their safety.” Officers then “choked” him and arrested him, Vittorio said, referring to deploying a stun gun without firing its projectiles. They recovered a semi-automatic pistol from the bag that was filled with three rounds of ammunition, Vittorio said. He said officers suspected the teenager had a gun, based on the way he reached for the bag during the chase and fight, which turned it into a “deadly force incident.” “If the shooter had pulled that gun, he could have shot them,” Vittorio said. “Did they have to wait for him to take it out?” One of them, a field training officer, has worked at the department for 12 years and the other has worked there for six, according to Vittorio. Department Chief Gerald Vetter, a department spokesman, declined to answer further questions from The Washington Post on Friday, citing the ongoing investigation. Three D.C. police officers fired after video shows man repeatedly punched during arrest Rehab said the officers’ account of being threatened by the gun “defies logic” and that they would have needed “insight” to know Abu Atelah was armed. “He wasn’t moving the gun. He didn’t arm it. He wasn’t using it – he wasn’t being threatened,” he said. “This is not one of those cases where someone runs around with a gun in their hands.” Rehab said relations between police and the Arab community are already “in dire need of improvement” in Oak Lawn, where 7 percent of the population is of Arab descent, according to the Census Bureau. “From what we hear from the local community, they don’t feel properly protected and respected by the police,” he said. While police held the press conference on Thursday, Abu Atela’s family and supporters gathered outside. His mother, Dena Natur, told CBS Chicago that the officers’ actions amounted to a “beating to death.” “He’s got fractures all over his face, he’s bruised, he’s in the hospital right now with a neck brace,” Natour said. “Why did the police, over 300 pounds, attack my son who is only 115 pounds? Why did they do what they did? It is not required, it is not necessary and it is not acceptable.”
