Article author:
Associated Press
PARK RIDGE, Illinois (AP) — A Chicago police sergeant has been charged with an off-duty incident in which he pinned a 14-year-old Chicago suburban boy with his knee against his back. After suspecting him of stealing his son's bicycle.
Sgt. Michael Viterraro faces charges of official misconduct and aggravated battery in connection with the July incident in Park Ridge, Chicago suburban police said Thursday. } Vitellaro, 49, turned himself in to Park Ridge Police on Thursday and was taken to Cook County Courthouse in Skokie to await a hearing, The (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald reported.
21}A spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department said Viterraro was released from police authority on Wednesday.
Park Ridge Police did not immediately release Viterraro's hometown.
The accusation stems from an incident in which a boy was out with friends at Park His Ridge on July 1. When the young man had a bicycle, when police confronted him, he started moving another bicycle that was blocking the road, Antonio Romanucci, a teenage family attorney, said last month.
A video provided by Romanucci and the boy's family reportedly shows an off-duty sergeant grabbing the boy, pinning his arms behind his back on the pavement and placing his knees on his back.
"He's hijacking my son's bike," a man can be heard speaking in the video.
Friends shout back, "No, not him," as they help lift the young man from the ground.
According to the Chicago Sun, Viterraro "placed the Puerto Rican boy on an armbar and forced him to the ground into a prone position" before kneeling on his back. - reported The Times.
Romanucci, he told the newspaper in July, that the case was "a clear case of racial profiling."
"The off-duty police officer was white and the only person of color in the group of teenagers," the lawyer said.
The Chicago Citizen's Police Accountability Office said last month it was investigating the officers' actions.
