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Police Officer Convicted After Videotaped Beating
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University – Scholarship in Action
James Mandarino, an officer with the Streamwood Police Force in Illinois, was convicted this week by a judge who watched his videotaped beating of a motorist. He was found guilty of aggravated battery and official misconduct.
"Any rational analysis (of the video) will show that the conduct of the defendant was wrong, just plain wrong, unprovoked, unnecessary and unacceptable," said Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Fecarotta Jr.
In the video, Mandarino is seen hitting Ronald Bell several times with a metal baton. He’d followed Bell to the home of his brother, where he asked him to get out of the car. During the 15 strikes of the baton to Bell’s face and body, it appears that he is trying to cooperate with the officer and he is also unarmed.
Your Black News: Report: 12-Yr-Old Black Girl Assaulted By Police In Wrong Prostitution Raid
It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn’s home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.
As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”
Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat. [...]
All this is according to a lawsuit filed in Galveston federal court by Milburn against the officers. The lawsuit alleges that the officers thought Dymond, an African-American, was a hooker due to the “tight shorts” she was wearing, despite not fitting the racial description of any of the female suspects. The police went to the wrong house, two blocks away from the area of the reported illegal activity, Milburn’s attorney, Anthony Griffin, tells Hair Balls.
After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries.
Three weeks later, according to the lawsuit, police went to Dymond’s school, where she was an honor student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant.
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