LANSING, Ill. — A video has surfaced on social media that shows a white suburban police officer pinning down an African American teen and threatening his life for trespassing.
It all started Saturday afternoon when a couple of teenage boys got into a fight with another group of boys. They were able to get away only to find themselves in a totally different and unexpected fight.
“You guys are on my f—ing property!” an off-duty Lansing police officer says in the video while pinning 15-year-old Jordan Brunson to the ground with his knee, his hand on the boy’s neck.
“Let me go!” Jordan says in the video.
“No, you are on my f—ing property. I could f—ing kill you,” the officer says.
Jordan’s friend was shooting the cell phone video, which is only a few minutes long.
“Tell your friend to come here right now,” the officer says.
At one point in the video, a woman walks outside the home and says, “You guys came to the wrong house.”
Moments earlier, Jordan says he was trying to help his friend who was sitting on the officer’s porch. He had been beaten up pretty bad in a fight earlier Saturday afternoon. WGN talked to Jordan at his home Monday night.
“I was examining him. I was going to go tell his grandmother,” Jordan said. He then says the officer came out of nowhere and grabbed them both.
WGN reporter Erik Runge: “You never heard the officer ask what you doing there?”
Jordan: “No.”
Runge: “Did you ever heard the officer say get off of my property.”
Jordan: “No.”
Runge: “Did he ever identify himself as a cop?”
Jordan: “No.”
Jordan’s aunt Lashawnya Brunson posted the video that Jordan’s friend recorded to Facebook. She says the officer’s behavior is outrageous.
“If he wasn’t an officer, just a regular man, would they do the same thing? No, he’d be locked up,” she said.
On Monday night, two police officers sat in an unmarked car keeping an eye on the officer’s home. No one came do the door when WGN knocked. Reporter Erik Runge left a note asking for his side of the story. So far, he hasn’t called.
The Lansing Police Department released as statement that says, in part:
“An off-duty Lansing police officer, outside on his personal property, became involved when he was approached by two other subjects involved in the fight. One of the juveniles had visible minor injuries, and the other was temporarily detained for further investigation until the arrival of on-duty officers.”
Jordan says neither he nor his friend was approached by officers at any time.
Jordan says the off-duty officer let him up when the on-duty officers arrived. Jordan’s family filed a police report and wants the officer brought up on charges.
