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Suit: Paralyzed Man Dragged From Car and Beaten by Chicago Cops
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on July 25, 2008, Printed on May 27, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/92754/suit%3A_paralyzed_man_dragged_from_car_and_beaten_by_chicago_cops
A series of anecdotes aren't data, but these kinds of stories have been popping up every day for years ...
Chicago Sun-Times: A quadriplegic man sued the Chicago Police Department in federal court Thursday, claiming officers yanked him out of the passenger seat of a car in 2006, dragged him to the ground and beat him up even though he kept yelling "I'm paralyzed." "They were kicking me and punching me," Daniel Casares said. "I was scared for my life." Casares, 28, can't use his legs and his right hand -- and his left arm and hand are "significantly paralyzed," said his attorney, Blake Horwitz. On Oct. 9, 2006, Casares was a passenger in a car driven by his brother. They were parked in an alley in the 10300 block of Avenue M in the East Side neighborhood. Casares said he was waiting for a man to bring him money for a car deal when officers approached. The cops suspected the men were smoking marijuana and told them to get out of the car, Horwitz said. The cops were members of Chicago's Targeted Response Unit, "deployed across the city to fight crime in 'hot spots'," meaning poor, mostly minority neighborhoods, which is one reason why, in the country that locks up more of its citizens than any other on earth, criminal justice issues are often ignored by the majority.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.
© 2012 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/92754/
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