Police

Video Shows Chicago Cop Using Handcuffs to Beat Teen Over the Head

Even if he was resisting arrest, this much force seems unnecessary.

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Large image on homepages | Facebook Screenshoot via Clark X Clark
(Facebook Screenshoot via Clark X Clark)

A Chicago police officer now faces a use-of-force investigation, thanks to a video that appears to show him beating a teenager over the head with a pair of handcuffs.

Police say 16-year-old Skyler Miller matched the description of a robbery suspect. "We had a crew of young individuals going around on the Red Line robbing people, and he was identified as a possible suspect with that particular group," Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson tells WBBM. "So that's why they were approaching him."

Two Facebook videos taken at the scene revealed what happened next. In one clip, two officers attempt to detain Miller, who protests. "Relax," the officers tell Miller, who claims he "didn't do shit." Miller is clearly belligerent, and he refuses to go with them.

The other video appears to pick up soon after. At that point, Miller is being held by two officers while a third repeatedly hits him on the head with a pair of handcuffs. Once Miller is on the ground, a fourth officer joins the effort to detain him. Eventually, the cops help Miller up off the ground and lead him up an escalator:

Miller was taken to the police station. Police tell WFLD he's being charged with resisting arrest. But he has to be charged in connection with the robbery. "By the time the dust settled on that particular robbery, the [robbery] victim had wandered off," Johnson tells WBBM. "So we still haven't located that victim yet."

Miller says he had no idea why the cops were trying to detain him. "Two officers came up and one threw me against the wall and they tried to put the cuffs on me," he tells the Chicago Sun-Times. "They didn't tell me why. They didn't tell me what I was arrested for." The Civilian Office of Police Accountability has since opened an investigation into the incident.

The Chicago Police Department has been plagued by allegations of misconduct for years. Indeed, from 2004 to 2014 the force spent more than $500 million handling misconduct-related lawsuits.