A south suburban village has asked an outside governmental agency to investigate an incident sparked by a viral video involving an off-duty police officer, the mayor said. The officer, now on administrative leave, can be seen in the video holding down a teenage boy on his lawn and threatening him.
Lansing Mayor Patricia Eidam said Friday the village has been the focus of “intense media scrutiny” since the video has been viewed on Facebook millions of times. Lansing police previously said they were investigating after video was shared on social media of an off-duty officer restraining an adolescent boy by pushing down on his chest, neck and throat area.
“The events that unfolded last Saturday in the front yard of an off-duty police officer remind us that we as a community face many of the same issues confronting neighborhoods across the nation,” Eidam said.
Lansing police confirmed Tuesday that the man seen in the video is a police officer who was off duty during the Saturday incident, though the department has not named him.
Police said officers were dispatched around 3:45 p.m. to the area of 192nd Street and Oakwood Avenue for a fight involving numerous juveniles.
Police said the off-duty officer was approached on his lawn by two of the juveniles involved in the fight.
One of the boys had “visible minor injuries” from the fight, police said. Police said the other boy, who was seen pinned to the ground in the video, was “detained for further investigation” until on-duty officers arrived on the scene, according to Lansing police.
That boy, Jordan Brunson, told NBC 5 he and his friend had been jumped by at least three other boys after a basketball game.
The two managed to get away from the fight, Brunson said, and he found his friend with scratches and bruises hiding in some bushes in the officer's yard.
The friend asked Brunson to go tell his grandma, who lives nearby, what happened, he said, but when Brunson attempted to leave, he said the off-duty officer grabbed him.
“This man grabs me and says ‘you’re not going nowhere,’” Brunson said.
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Brunson said the off-duty officer came out of nowhere, and he didn’t see the officer before being confronted. He tried to get his phone out to record what was happening, but the officer smacked the phone out of his hand, he said. Brunson’s friend then picked up the phone and recorded the incident, he said.
“Tell your friend to come back here right now with your phone right now,” the officer in the video can be heard saying as he pins Brunson to the ground.
“Hey, bro, let him go, dude!” Brunson’s friend said from behind the camera.
Brunson asked the officer, who is in a black T-shirt, red gym shorts and sandals, to let him go.
“No, you come on my property I’m gonna f------ kill you,” the man responded, the video shows.
A woman who was off camera on the front stoop of the home can be heard saying “They’re on their way, you stay put, you came to the wrong house.”
The off-duty officer accused the boys of trespassing and “acting stupid” as they pleaded with him.
Brunson, in a later interview with NBC 5, said when the on-duty officers arrived on the scene they approached the off-duty officer “like they were cool with him.”
“They all came back laughing, like they were all buddies or something,” Brunson said, adding that he did not know immediately that the man was an officer.
“I would think that a cop would actually try to help,” he said. “He could have at least talked to me, he didn’t have to force me to the ground.”
Eidam said in a statement she was glad the incident did not escalate.
“I am thankful that no individual involved in the altercation was seriously injured or killed,” she said. “I am also thankful that no weapons were drawn or shots fired,” adding “it is fortunate the incident did not rise to the level of similar events that have occurred elsewhere.”
The village reached out to the Cook County Sheriff's office about conducting the investigation, a spokesman for the village said, but has not yet received a response.
Andrew M. Stroth, a civil rights attorney representing Jordan and his family said the family is conducting their own independent investigation.
“We are demanding a meeting with the mayor, the chief of police and evaluating whether we will file a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Lansing and the police officer involved,” Stroth told NBC News.
The officer in the video declined to speak with NBC 5, but he told a reporter who went to his home “the truth will come out.”
