Original Article 2 cops face charges in beating of suspects By Tonya Maxwell Tribune staff reporter Published August 18, 2005 After an announcement Wednesday that two Chicago police officers have been indicted for hitting shoplifting suspects in unrelated incidents, one of the victims said the female officer pummeled her in the head and left her with a bloody nose. "My head was banging, and I could tell my wrist was swollen" from the handcuffs, said Michel'le Hutchison, 14. A grand jury has indicted Officers Alexandra Martinez and Larry Guy Jr., both 11-year veterans of the Chicago Police Department, on charges of hitting shoplifting suspects. Both incidents were caught on department-store video cameras, Police Supt. Philip Cline said as he announced the indictments Wednesday. Cline expressed disappointment at police misconduct he saw on the tapes, but he would not release them publicly, saying they would be evidence. Hutchison said Wednesday she was unaware she was being videotaped. "I didn't know. I guess [Martinez] didn't know either." Both officers have been stripped of police powers, assigned to desk duty and are in the process of being fired, Cline said. In the case that carries the more-serious charges, grand jurors indicted Martinez, assigned to the Chicago Lawn District, on two counts of felony official misconduct and one count of battery after finding she hit the 14-year-old girl in the head. Official misconduct is punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Guy, of the Albany Park District, was indicted on one count of battery and one count of attempting to obstruct justice, both misdemeanors punishable by up to 1 year, in a June 15 case at a Target store on Chicago's Northwest Side. In both cases, the partners of those officers watched what happened, but they never reported possible misconduct, Cline said. Those officers also are on administrative duty, and an internal investigation into their actions continues, he said. Martinez and Guy could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Dan Herbert, an attorney for the Fraternal Order of Police, said he has talked with both officers about the investigation, but he declined further comment. The Martinez case began when police were called to the JCPenney Store at 7601 S. Cicero Ave. on April 11. Store security officers were holding the girl, who was suspected of shoplifting. In her attorney's office Wednesday afternoon, Hutchison gave her version of what happened after Martinez and a male officer arrived. An office desk separated her from the police, said Hutchison, a 9th-grader at South Shore High School. The female officer first taunted her, saying that when she was young and stole things, she didn't get caught, Hutchison said. Then Hutchison asked the female officer why she was picking on her: "I asked if it was because I was black." The female officer came around the desk and began jabbing her finger in Hutchison's forehead and repeating, "What did you say? What did you say?" according to the girl. Hutchison said the officer knocked her head backward into a wall with enough force to leave a knot. That officer then hit Hutchison in the head several more times, according to the girl, who said she put her hands up to try and fend off an attack. Hutchison said the female officer threw her across the desk and roughly handcuffed her. The male officer, who she said stood by passively during the exchange, helped put handcuffs on her. Hutchison said she realized her nose was bloodied after the handcuffs were removed at a police station. Hutchison's mother, Catherine Hutchison, said she later picked up her daughter at the station. No charges were filed, but the mother said she was angry her daughter had been at Penney's and didn't want to talk with her that evening. The next day, Catherine Hutchison said, her daughter told her a police officer had hurt her. But the mother made no complaint, saying she didn't know where to go or what to do. Michel'le Hutchison said she was left with nightmares and an unease about police, that they'll "try to beat you for no reason like they did me." A few weeks later, law enforcement officials notified both the mother and daughter that they would need to testify in front of a grand jury and later showed the mother the tape. Catherine Hutchison was horrified and cried, she said, as she watched the black and white video. The officer hit her daughter more than a half-dozen times, she said, and pulled the white ribbon around her daughter's ponytail from her head. "I just couldn't believe this was happening to my daughter," she said. "If she did [it to] her, she had to do [it to] someone else." The family's attorney, Jeffrey Granich, said he plans to file a federal lawsuit by Friday and hopes the case begins a citywide dialogue about police brutality. Without the videotape, he said, the case would likely have never come to light and the officers would have gone unpunished. In the second case, Guy is accused of hitting a 21-year-old man, who could not be found Wednesday. In the Target store at 2939 W. Addison St., security officers there held a shoplifting suspect and called police, Cline said Wednesday. The man, identified in the indictment as Amando Lucas, was handcuffed and not a threat when the officer punched him and shoved him violently back into the chair, Cline said, describing the videotape. Lucas was first charged with retail theft, a charge that was dropped at the end of July. Guy also faces one count of attempted obstruction of justice after jurors determined he tried to have the videotape erased. Both stores came to police with the videotapes, Cline said, and officers turned them over to the Office of Professional Standards. That investigation led Chicago's police union to warn its rank and file to be cautious of responding to shoplifting calls at Penney and Target stores. "On two occasions these stores have sent copies of the videotapes to the department and officers are now facing discipline because of their actions. These stores are not your friends," the Fraternal Order of Police said in a newsletter. Union officials declined to comment on that earlier announcement, but President Mark Donahue said Wednesday that both officers should be presumed innocent. Donahue's one-paragraph release, coming after Cline's news conference, was critical of law enforcement leaders who convict people in the media before a court trial. Target officials could not be reached for comment, but Tim Lyons of JCPenny Company, based in Plano, Texas, said those stores remain on good terms with police. "We've been assured by the Police Department that we have their support, and from the comments I've heard, they have been supportive of our actions in this incident," he said. Martinez is to appear in court on Sept. 6; Guy on Aug. 31