2 Investigators/BGA: State's Attorney Has Had Video Evidence In Lynwood Police Brutality Case For Two Years
(CBS) -- Another case of alleged police misconduct caught on video is turning up the heat on embattled Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. Pam Zekman and the Better Government Association first broke the story a year ago and now have new details.
As previously reported by CBS 2, the Lynwood police officer involved in this case, Sgt. Brandin Fredericksen, has already been fired and the village has settled a lawsuit filed in the case for half million dollars. Transcripts of hearings and depositions in those cases obtained by the BGA and the 2-Investigators show various assistant state's attorneys have seen videotaped evidence of the September 2013 incident since about a month after it happened.
The 2 Investigators and BGA first revealed videos of Sgt. Fredericksen appearing to shove a prisoner, Randolph Holmes, in handcuffs against a door.
Holmes says another video in the police department garage shows Officer Fredericksen punching him, causing him to fall and break his nose and hitting his head, causing a concussion.
"He turned around and hit me with the elbow like this and I fall to the ground. He punched me multiple times," Randolph Holmes said.
"It took a FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, request on your part for those tapes to come out," said James Montgomery Jr., who filed the lawsuit in Holmes' behalf.
"Had they been handled properly when the states attorney viewed them initially, Mr. Holmes should have been set free and Mr. Fredericksen is the person who should be sitting in a jail cell and to this day he is not."
Now there's a video Montgomery obtained from the Sauk Village Police Department, where Holmes was taken for fingerprinting the night of the incident.
Montgomery says it shows Fredericksen demonstrating what happened with Holmes to his brother, a Sauk Village cop.
"He shows his fist coming forward," Montgomery said. "And then shows himself buckling at the knees as Holmes did after Holmes received that sucker punch."
Holmes was charged with battery for allegedly spitting on Fredericksen that night, and spent a year in jail awaiting trial. The charges were later dismissed after the tapes became public.
Now Montgomery believes Fredericksen should be charged with battery, and misconduct for trying to cover up the incident by pressuring other officers not to report it.
"When you don't prosecute situations like this you're effectively giving the police permission to do it again. You're telling the good people that work around him don't waste your time blowing the whistle on them because nothing is going to happen," said Montgomery.
The head of the Better Government Association says it also erodes public confidence in police.
"This Lynwood case feels a lot like a mini version of what we're seeing in Chicago, a police department failing to do the right thing with an incident and the state's attorney's office dragging its feet interminably," said Better Government Association President Andy Shaw.
"For God's sake! Two years? That's ridiculous. That's a miscarriage of justice regardless of how it comes out now," Shaw added.
In a written statement, Sally Daly, communications director for the states attorney said the office, "strongly disputes allegations that the investigation has taken too long."
"The particular facts and circumstances of this case are extremely complex," Daly said. "And have complicated the pace of the investigation."
The investigation has been delayed in part because of the civil lawsuit Holmes filed after the incident and because Holmes was charged with attempted murder in a more recent unrelated case.
She said the office has been, "engaged in an ongoing and active investigation" and in recent months has issued subpoenas and continued to gather information needed to complete "a comprehensive and thorough investigation."
Fredericksen says he was justified hitting Holmes to protect himself from Holmes spitting on him again. He denies trying to cover up what happened that night and is appealing his dismissal.
Fredericksen also denies he was demonstrating what happened in Lynwood on that Sauk Village police tape, but says he does not recall what he was talking about. Fredericksen is now appealing his dismissal by Lynwood and looking for work with other police departments.
