Surveillance video shows two former Chicago school resource officers dragging a 16-year-old student down a flight of stairs and using a stun gun on her three times, ABC 7 Chicago reported late Thursday.
The footage reportedly stems from a January incident involving John Marshall Metropolitan High School student Dnigma Howard, who was kicked out of a class for refusing to put her phone away.
{mosads}The newly released video showed Howard and an officer at the top of a flight of stairs before the officer grabbed her and tackled her to the ground. The student is then dragged down the stairs by one leg.
“In the video, you can see they pull her by the leg down the stairs, the whole flight of stairs,” her father, Laurentio Howard, told the station.
In the video, Dnigma Howard is seen being held on the ground while she thrashes and appears to fight back, ABC 7 noted.
One officer appears to kick and punch her before he ultimately deploys his stun gun a total of three times.
“I thought maybe they were going to try to choke her out or she would lose consciousness or something like that. They had their foot on her chest. She has asthma, she’s telling me she can’t breathe. She’s turning red, I see a vein sticking out her forehead,” Laurentio Howard said.
Her father witnessed the clash at the school after he was called to pick his daughter up.
“I couldn’t believe I seen two sworn police officers of Chicago abusing my daughter like this and I’m standing right there watching them do this and can’t do anything about it,” he told the station.
The video appears to contradict the story officers initially told following the incident earlier this year, ABC 7 reported. The officers initially said that Howard got agitated and physically lashed out at the security guard when they called to escort her out of class.
“Thank god for that video,” Andrew Stroth, the family’s attorney said. “When this instance first happened the state’s attorney charged a 16-year-old unarmed girl with two felonies for aggravated assault against a peace officer.”
Those charges have since been dropped by the State’s Attorney’s Office.
The two officers seen in the video were removed from the school and resigned to different duties amidst an independent investigation.