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NEWS & LETTERS,
August-September 2002
Chicago police home invasion nightmare
Chicago--My granddaughter and I were in an argument in
my home on Feb. 16. She was really agitated. She was on punishment because she
had missed school, and I wouldn’t allow her to leave the house. I am 54 years
old, I have asthma and other health problems. I just wanted some help in getting
my granddaughter to calm down, so I called the police. My daughter was also at
the house with her four little boys. My granddaughter had gone up to her room and closed the
door when the police arrived. When they opened her door they claimed that she
had something in her hand. When I entered her room Officer Mendoza was sitting
on her legs on the bed, and another officer was sitting on her chest. She wasn’t
trying to kick or anything. I told the officers, “Let her sit up. She can’t
breathe.” Mendoza said, “She can breathe, she’s talking.” Officer Conroy
busted into the house and grabbed me and pushed me out of the room. We were
facing each other so I was being pushed backwards. The way he was pushing, with
my asthma, I couldn’t catch my breath. It was terrifying. He pushed me into
the living room where my daughter and babies were. Mendoza and the others were carrying my granddaughter
downstairs. She only had a short dress on, you could see underneath. It was
winter but she had no shoes. They didn’t give her a chance to put her shoes
on. Mendoza struck her on the side of her head. There were six or seven police
officers there, men and women, but they didn’t do anything to stop him. When I
was shoved in another room by myself, one Black woman officer came in and said,
“Be quiet, be quiet. I see what is happening here.” This same officer told
the others to let my daughter get my granddaughter her shoes. But she wouldn’t
stand up for us in front of the others. An officer told me, “Get your coat! You’re going to
jail!” My neighbor had heard all the noise and came over. She called the
police and said, “Send a sergeant down here. These police are out of control.”
Sergeant Mulray arrived and asked, “What do you want me to do?” He didn’t
do anything but tell me that I was obstructing justice. At the police station, the officers tried to claim that
my granddaughter had struck one of them in the face. I could hear Mendoza trying
to agitate my granddaughter. Conroy and his buddies were just walking around
laughing. They said, “If you make a complaint we’re going to put your
granddaughter in jail for hitting a police officer.” Mendoza was trying to get
one officer to say that he was hurt by my granddaughter. They let me upstairs at the station when the youth
officer came. She said the charges against us would be dropped if we’d drop
the charges against Officer Conroy. They tore up the complaint against us. My
granddaughter was told that she would have to go to a CAPS program. The youth
officer told her that she could have been shot for striking an officer. She
tried to scare her. We have complained to the Office of Professional
Standards, but they haven’t gotten in touch with us. How could the police just
be allowed to come into my home and terrorize us like that? We were all women
and children. What about my grandchildren seeing something like that? How do you
tell them to call the police when they need help? --Gloria Lewis |
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