Chicago police officers were caught on camera allegedly wrestling a handcuffed woman to the ground and yelling racially charged comments at her.
Surveillance video released earlier this week showed police entering a tanning salon and spa and grabbing Jessica Klyzek, who is of Asian descent. Police allegedly wrestled her to the ground and struck her in the head while she was handcuffed and on her knees. The woman has accused the officers of physically abusing her during the raid at the salon. She has sued the Chicago Police Department over the incident, which occurred last July.
Audio from the recording reveals an individual saying: “You’re not f—ing American. I’ll put you in a UPS box and send you back to wherever the f— you came from.”
C.C. Yin, founder and chair of the Asian Pacific American Public Affairs Association (APAPA), told msnbc he was “horrified” by the footage. He said his group is “calling on [the police] to issue an apology and terminate the officers involved,” if the allegations are proven true.
Klyzek “is a naturalized American citizen of Chinese descent, but that’s beside the point: immigrants already wonder whether they belong, and no one should ever hear: ‘You’re not American,’” the group said in a statement.
“What shocks us even more is that a police officer could say: ‘You’ll be dead and your family will be dead.’ We cannot trust such a man with a gun and a badge,” the group added.
The Chicago Police Department promised to get to the bottom of the allegations. “The alleged conduct and comments are reprehensible and completely intolerable in our police department. We have Codes of Conduct that apply to officers, and if the allegations are proven accurate, appropriate action will be taken,” the police department told msnbc’s “NewsNation.” Klyzek, who has never been arrested, ended up with bruises on her body, her attorney, Torreya Hamilton, said Friday on “NewsNation.” “For the most part, the bad-apple police officers, they don’t abuse people like me, people that have the power to do something about it,” she said. “They abuse people that are black, or are brown, or are an immigrant, or have criminal convictions, or are unable to stand up for their rights.”
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