Park Ridge residents express anger over child of color being pinned to pavement; police chief asks for witnesses

Park Ridge residents packed a city council meeting Tuesday to express anger over an incident in which a man identified as a Chicago police sergeant wrestled a Puerto Rican-American 14-year-old to the ground and pinned him there, accusing him of stealing a bicycle, according to Park Ridge police.

Residents who spoke at the meeting demanded that Park Ridge be a safe environment for all, regardless of skin color, and some Latinx residents said they have felt unwelcome in the city. The boy who was tackled lives in Park Ridge and recently graduated from a Park Ridge-Niles District 64 middle school.

“We need to make a statement as a Park Ridge community that we will not tolerate violence against any single one of our children, regardless of the color of their skin,” said Elena Ward, who told the council she has a son who looks like the boy who was pinned to the sidewalk during the July 1 incident in Uptown Park Ridge.

A viral video circulated on social media showing the boy looking up while being held face-down on the pavement by a man, who appears to be Caucasian, and is pressing a knee on the youth’s back.

At the city council meeting, Park Ridge Police Chief Frank Kaminski told the public that the police department was working with the Chicago Police Department’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability and planned to meet with the state’s attorney’s office Wednesday about the incident.

He also confirmed that the man who held the boy down was a Chicago police sergeant and said they had just obtained security footage of the incident from a coffee shop on Northwest Highway. The incident took place outside the shop.

Kaminski also requested public cooperation as police detectives investigated the case.

“If you have any information or witnessed this event, we really need you to come down to the police department and give us a statement,” he said.

In the hour of public comment that came shortly after Kaminski’s request, some residents asked why the man involved in the incident hadn’t yet been arrested, and they questioned the police department’s urgency in investigating the matter. Some inquired how they could keep up with the developments; some also commended local officers for their handling of the incident itself.

Kaminski later told the Chicago Tribune/Pioneer Press that he didn’t think the public understood that law enforcement was taking the matter seriously.

“We think it’s a serious matter. We’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” he said.

At the meeting, Katrina Mercado said the incident is the most recent in a string of issues that make her doubt whether she and her family belong in the city.

“I’m Puerto Rican and the longer I live here, the more I feel I am not wanted here and my children are not wanted here,” she said.

Mercado said that Maine South High School refused to put up a Black Lives Matter sign last summer.

“And now I’ve seen this,” she said, adding that the child in the incident looks like her son.

Mercado asked the council to prove her wrong.

“Show me that I belong here,” she said.

Shannon Uzemack told the council she grew up in Park Ridge and identifies as half Mexican.

She described a joke she and one of her closest childhood friends had while growing up. “We used to joke that we were the only whole Mexican at Maine South – and it took two of us,” she said.

That has changed, Uzemack said, as more diversity has come to the city.

“I love that I get to walk down my street now and I actually get to see people that look like me and look like my family,” she said.

She called on the city council to support that increasing diversity.

The family of the boy who was pinned down confirmed Tuesday to the Chicago Tribune/Pioneer Press that they planned to take legal action against the man who restrained their son, and have retained attorneys Antonio Romanucci and Bhavani Raveendran.

At a press conference Wednesday morning, Romanucci said, “There is no doubt that our client was racially profiled.”

The 14-year-old recently graduated from Emerson Middle School and plans to attend Maine South High School.