Members of the NAACP in Indiana are urging officials in Hammond to stop what the group calls aggressive arrests of residents over concerns that the Northwest Indiana town could become the next Ferguson, Missouri.
Hammond Indiana Branch President Homer Cobb said Indiana’s NAACP State President Barbara Bolling-Williams and other members of the Hammond branch have met with Mayor Thomas McDermott , the city’s police chief and assistant police chief to “express their concerns about how officers have been allegedly over aggressively arresting Hammond residents, including arrests for minor incidents that the police seem to have escalated.”
Cobb also called for the department to review its training policy "so Hammond will not become the next Ferguson, Missouri."
“The officers need to be properly trained in communicating and interacting with multicultural and diverse groups,” Cobb said in a statement. “We are not asking the residents of Hammond to behave in a destructive manner, but record and report the officer's behavior legally to help deter bad behavior.”
The call comes after video surfaced of officers using a stun gun on a passenger in a vehicle that was pulled over for a seatbelt violation.
On Friday, the Hammond branch of the NAACP held a news conference outside the Hammond police station, calling for the police officers involved to be pulled from the streets, according to the Northwest Indiana Times.
Bolling-Williams said during the conference that the officers should be "confined to desk duty and not interact with the public until there has been a full investigation," the NWI Times reports.
Video of the Sept. 24 traffic stop was recorded by a 14-year-old in the backseat of the car when the family was stopped while en route to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County to visit the driver's mother, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.
During a conversation and exchange of information with the officers, Jamal Jones, was ordered out of the passenger seat. Jones didn't get out of the car because he feared for his safety, the lawsuit said.
The video, recorded by Joseph Ivy, shows one of the officers busting out the passenger window with a tool. Broken glass injured Ivy and his little sister, Janiya Ivy, the complaint said. Jones is later seen in the video wincing in pain when a Taser is used on him. He was removed from the car, pushed to the ground and shocked a second time, the complaint alleges.
Hammond Police Lt. Richard Hoyda said in a statement that the officers acted within the law.
"In general, police officers who make legal traffic stops are allowed to ask passengers inside of a stopped vehicle for identification and to request that they exit a stopped vehicle for the officer’s safety without a requirement of reasonable suspicion," he said, adding that the officers feared for their own safety because Jones reportedly dropped his hands behind the vehicle's center console."
Hammond’s Mayor, Thomas McDermott, released a statement following the incident saying that he is “standing solidly behind the actions of these police officers.”
