Nikkita Brown is "still emotionally scarred" after she was grabbed by a Chicago police officer while walking her dog along the lakefront last month, her attorney says.
"The lakefront is now triggering because she was attacked there," said attorney Keenan Saulter. "And more importantly, she was attacked by someone who had been sworn to actually protect her."
NBC 5 obtained a 911 call that shed new light on the controversial incident that was captured in a now-viral video. The call begins with Brown requesting help, and a Chicago police sergeant, after her interaction with a police officer at North Avenue Beach.
“I need to report an incident with a cop,” she told the dispatcher. “Can you just send a sergeant please?”
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Brown told dispatchers that she was “harassed” by the officer during the incident.
“I was harassed by a Chicago PD,” she said. “I was profiled. I was threatened.”
The dispatcher asks Brown if the officer drew a weapon, and she responds that he did not. She also mentioned that the officer was not wearing a mask, and said that she had asked him for space on multiple occasions.
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“He tried to drop me on several occasions, and I asked for my space, and he did not have on a mask,” she says.
Brown took video at the scene, which records her asking the officer to back away because of the officer not wearing a mask.
Another video taken by a bystander, which was widely released after the incident, appears to show Brown and her dog backing away from the officer as he continues to follow her and gesture with his arms to steer her away from the lakefront. The video, taken from a distance, does not capture audio of their conversation.
Brown then stops, with a cell phone in her hand, and the officer can be seen attempting to take her phone, grabbing and holding onto her right arm with both hands as she screams and struggles to break free, still holding the leash of her dog, entangled in the scuffle. Brown loses a shoe and drops her phone as the officer gains control over both of her arms and fully restrains her.
The physical struggle lasts for a little over a minute before the officer releases her. They can be seen continuing to speak to one another as she collects her belongings and then walks away from the lakefront. The officer walks the opposite direction, back toward the beach and the video ends.
Attorneys for Brown, who is Black, called the encounter an “unprovoked attack” and an “obvious case of racial profiling,” saying she was emotionally traumatized by the confrontation.
Brown's attorney said they requested police body camera footage from the incident, as well as the official police report, but no documents nor video has been received.
The officer has been placed on desk duty pending an investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
