Itemid Al-Matar was on her way home to celebrate the end of Ramadan but was taken to the ground by police while trying to board a Chicago Transit Authority train in an incident that was caught on camera.
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According to court records, Al-Matar, who moved to Chicago from Saudi Arabia two years ago to study English, is 32. The lawsuit was filed by both her attorney, Gregory Kulis, and the Chicago chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Her attorney says it should never have come to that.
The lawsuit alleges that the police acted with prejudice and “with malice”.
Al Matar wears the niqab, a cloth face covering that some conservative Muslim women wear.
The Department of Justice is now investigating the police department’s conduct in the incident, he said.
Chicago police declined to comment, saying it “cannot comment on pending lawsuits”.
“We’re hoping that this [lawsuit] is going to vindicate her, her constitutional rights”, Al Matar’s lawyer, Greg Kulis, said Thursday. The complaint alleges that Al-Matar was falsely arrested to “cover up” the officers’ unlawful use of force, but did not state the crimes she was charged with.
According to the police report from Al Matar’s arrest, officers were on high alert because it was July 4th, and when they saw her with her head and face covered, and carrying a backpack, they called out to her, but she ignored them.
“They grabbed her based on what she looked like”, Kulis said.
Video of the incident, while silent, shows several officers running past other platform users to detain the woman. She does not turn around, nor does anyone else on the stairs – something that Rehab said shows that the police made no verbal attempt to stop her.
The suit cites Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s acknowledgment in December of a prevailing “code of silence” among police and claims the department’s widespread custom of failing to investigate and discipline officers as a contributing factor in Al-Matar’s incident. Al Matar appeared to have “possible incindiary [sic] devices strapped around her ankles”.
Al Matar requested a jury trial, and the jury will determine any amount awarded, Kulis said. She was found not guilty in June.
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“As far as we’re concerned, policing ought to be concerned with criminal behavior and violations of the law, not with the way people dress or the color of their skin”, said Rehab.
