CPD Officer James Hunt, who once said on video he's killed 'mother——s,' recommended for dismissal over separate incident
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago Police Officer James Hunt – who nearly four years ago bragged on camera about killing someone while taunting an innocent Black man in a park – is now being recommended for dismissal over a different and separate incident.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown filed charges against Hunt with the Police Board regarding an arrest made during civil unrest downtown on the evening of May 30, 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis Police officer.
The departmental charges against Hunt said on 8 p.m. that evening, Hunt arrested a woman identified as Lakeya Woods without probable cause – and also broke her rear side window with his baton, lifted her from the ground by her wrists and hair, pushed her into a van, and/or struck her with his baton on the legs.
The charges went on to report that Hunt called Woods a "fat bitch," and said he failed either to request medical attention for Woods or to file a Tactical Response Report about the incident.
In the initial complaint, Woods said she got caught up in a "large crowd" while "driving downtown" that evening. She said, "there was a lot of commotion" and she tried "to get away from the area." That's when she saw "officers approaching her car." She said one of them "broke her back passenger side window" and there was "glass flying everywhere in her car." As she got out of her car, she said that same officer "began wrestling with her for her phone." She was recording the entire incident.
She said she needed "medical attention three times" and "was ignored" before going "completely numb." She ended up on the ground. She accused one of the officers of lifting her up by her head."
More than four years ago, Hunt was caught in an unrelated viral video incident. He was seen and heard in a viral video bragging on camera, "I kill mother******" during an obscenity-laden rant.
It happened on July 3, 2018. CBS 2 was the first to expose Hunt's entire interaction with Kenneth Lee that day. Lee was an innocent passerby to a police call to which Hunt responded.
"That's when he said, 'I have a Snapchat too,'" Lee said. "I said, 'No, you don't'. He said, "Yeah, I do, it's called I f***** your mama."
That day, according to a Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) summary report, after taunting Lee in the park, Hunt falsely arrested him too. Lee eventually won a $100,000 settlement from the city.
Hunt's troubling track record includes 24 complaints made by civilians between July 2014 and March 2020, according to COPA records. He also self-reported using force against civilians 28 times between 2016 and 2020. During that period, he had the fifth most reports, along with three other officers, according to CPD data analyzed by CBS 2. CPD has more than 12,000 officers on its force.
Last year, Supt. Brown removed Hunt from the city's new Community Safety Team after the CBS 2 Investigators brought Hunt's history of bad behavior to his attention. The Community Safety Team was formed in July 2020 to combat a rise in violent crime that started during the pandemic and to build trust with the community.
