Chicago Police officer fired after video showed him dragging woman at Brickyard Mall
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Chicago Police officer has now been fired, over an incident where officers dragged a woman to the ground by her hair from her car at the Brickyard Mall in 2020.
Officer David Laskus was fired Thursday by the Chicago Police Board over the incident that happened on Saturday, May 31, 2020, amid civil unrest following the George Floyd killing. The woman who was dragged and arrested, Mia Wright, said she lost vision in one eye as a result.
The Police Board said Laskus used excessive force, arrested Wright without probable cause, and lied about the incident to investigators. Police had said they thought Wright and her family members and friends who were all together in one car at Brickyard were involved in looting, but there was never any evidence that they were.
The day the incident happened, access to downtown Chicago had been restricted after severe unrest and looting there the night before, and unrest and looting had spread to neighborhoods across the city and beyond.
Laskus and his partner for the day were in an unmarked police sport-utility vehicle with two other officers.
At 3 p.m., the officers heard a dispatch call about looting at the Foot Locker store at the Brickyard Mall, at Narragansett and Diversey avenues on the western edge of the Belmont Cragin community. The Foot Locker is at the south end of the mall, the Police Board noted.
While headed to the scene, the officers also heard about looting at the Champs store at the north end of the mall. Surveillance video showed three men trying to break through the glass to enter the store – with one of them using a hammer, the Police Board said.
This did not work, and the three men fled, the Police Board said. Three of the four officers walked over to the Champs store and saw the cracked glass, and Laskus spoke to witnesses and then reported on police radio that they had told him multiple men had tried to smash out the windows, the Police Board said.
Laskus said witnesses told him the vandals got into a red Hyundai with Indiana license plates, the Police Board said.
Laskus claimed to have seen a man running from the Champs store with a hammer and jumping into the Hyundai, and he kept an eye on the Hyundai as it made its way through the parking lot, the Police Board said.
Laskus was joined by another officer as he walked through the parking lot, and Laskus said he believed the man he had seen running from the Champs store was in the red Hyundai, the Police Board said. Laskus and his partner ran behind the red Hyundai with wooden batons in their hands, and Laskus struck the back of the car with his baton, the Police Board said.
Laskus' partner tried to open the side passenger door, but the handle broke off and Laskus' partner fell back, the Police Board said. Laskus did not see why his partner fell back, but he said he believed the driver of the Hyundai was trying to run his partner over, and said to other officers on the scene that the red car had tried to run over cops, the Police Board said.
Ten officers swarmed the car and began hitting it with batons, yelling, and screaming at the people inside to exit, the Police Board said. At least one officer had his gun drawn, the Police Board said.
All the windows in the car ended up getting shattered except the driver's side window, the Police Board said. The driver and owner of the car, Tnika Tate, got out with her hands up.
There were four passengers in the car, of whom Wright was one, the Police Board said. The other three passengers – Kim Woods, Ebony Wilbourn, and Javon Hill – got out of the car from the driver's side and complied with the officers' directives, but Laskus kept hitting the car window on the passenger side of the car where Wright was sitting, the Police Board said.
Wright could not get out of the car because it was locked, the Police Board said.
Laskus went on hitting the front passenger side of the car six times, before his baton fell out of his hand, the Police Board said. Laskus' partner reached into the back window and unlocked the door, and pulled Wright out of the car – handing her over to Laskus, the Police Board said.
Wright said Laskus had dragged her down onto the ground by her hair, but he denied this to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability – even after being shown video to the contrary of the incident, the Police Board said. The Police Board said indeed Laskus did pull Wright "to the ground by the bun on top of her head such that the bun becomes undone."
Laskus put his knee on Wright, handcuffed her, lifted her to her feet, and put her in the back of a squad car, the Police Board said. She was compliant throughout and was not resistant at any point, the board said.
Laskus took control of the Hyundai and drove the red Hyundai to the Grand Central (25th) District police station. No hammer or proceeds from any looting were found in it, the Police Board said.
Wright was the only one in the car who was arrested, the Police Board said.
Upon arriving at the police station, Wright said she had glass in her eye – and she was treated at the hospital before being returned to the station, the Police Board said. She was charged with disorderly conduct and held overnight, but the charge was dropped the next day, the Police Board said.
In testimony before the Police Board, Laskus said he had seen a man running from the Champs store with a hammer and jumping into a red Hyundai – but he did not say anything about this on police radio. He testified that he saw the red Hyundai travel away from the store and kept an eye on it – believing the hammer-wielding man was inside, the Police Board said.
When shown video of what had happened, Laskus admitted that the red Hyundai was not traveling from the Champs store, but from the opposite direction.
Laskus also claimed he thought Hill, who had been in the Hyundai, had been the one who had been running from the Champs window with the hammer, the Police Board said. But the man seen on video with the hammer was not Hill, and Laskus admitted as much when he was shown the video, the board said.
Laskus admitted it could be a fearful experience to have one's car struck with a baton by officers, and admitted that he did not talk to anyone in the car before hitting it with his baton, the Police Board said.
Laskus further admitted that Wright was compliant and cooperative, and he decided she should be arrested for looting and charged with disorderly conduct because she did not exit the car when ordered to do so, the Police Board said.
Laskus said he saw a hammer in the center console of the Hyundai when he drove it to the police station – but he did not tell anyone he saw a hammer, and he did not find a hammer when he searched the car at the police station, the Police Board said.
He admitted that there was not actually any evidence of looting or criminal activity found in the car, the Police Board said.
Wright; her cousin, Tate; and the other friends and family members in the car said they had gone to the Brickyard Mall that day, because there had been looting at another mall they had wanted to visit. But they quickly realized the Target store they wanted to visit was closed, and they said their vehicle was surrounded by police as they tried to leave the parking lot.
Wright was left blind in one eye as a result of post-traumatic stress, Assistant Corporation Counsel Caroline Fronczak said in 2022.
The Police Board found that Wright violated numerous Police Department rules – by arresting Wright without probable cause and using unreasonable force on her, damaging the car with his baton, seizing the car and driving it to the police station without legal justification, failing to complete required reports, and providing false or misleading statements to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
The board ordered Thursday that Laskus be fired.
In February 2022, the City Council Finance Committee approved a settlement of $650,000 in damages for Wright, and $243,750 for the others in the car. The settlement totaling $1.675 million was later approved by the full City Council, though final approval was stalled for a month as some aldermen raised objections.