- Police Brutality Watch

A man has filed a lawsuit against a suburban Matteson police officer claiming the officer beat him up while he was in custody. What began as a routine call to break up a disturbance in a hotel parking lot is now a federal case. The incident happened early Monday morning outside the Holiday Inn and Lincoln Highway and Interstate-57. Frederick Jenkins says he was leaving a Super Bowl party at the hotel when police told him to get out of his vehicle. Jenkins says an officer then without provocation slammed him to the ground. "The sergeant arrived on the scene and specifically asked him who did this to you. Mr. Jenkins told the sergeant, your guys did this to me," said Gregory Kulis, attorney. In the lawsuit the officer involved is identified as John Doe because Jenkins and several purported witnesses did not get his name or badge number. On Tuesday morning Jenkins filed a complaint at Madison police headquarters. Today he went to federal court to file his civil rights lawsuit. "We filed that lawsuit today to seek justice because in this building people hear the claims of people like Frederick Jenkins, Sr.," said Robert Fioretti, attorney. Police sources tell ABC 7 that the officers were dispatched to the hotel to break up a fight between Jenkins and his cousin and the cousin injured the plaintiff. The source also claimed that while Jenkins was detained for some time Monday morning at police headquarters, he refused medical treatment. His lawyers say officers denied Jenkins' repeated pleas to see a doctor. "If a citizen is standing in a parking lot bleeding profusely from his head, screaming please take me to a hospital, and the police walk away, what do you think?" said Fioretti. [more]