A high school track athlete and football player at Northern Illinois University has filed a lawsuit against the Illinois State Police and the Matteson Police Department, claiming they were violent toward him during a false arrest.
According to the lawsuit, police arrived to Jyran Mitchell’s home on Feb. 2 and wrongly accused of him of fleeing a traffic stop. His grandmother, Carolyn, told the police they were mistaking Mitchell for his brother. However, they didn’t believe her and proceeded to arrest Mitchell.
“You don’t know what your grandson just did,” they said to Mitchell’s grandmother. “You think he’s an angel, he just ran from the police…Why do you think we’re here?”
When the police put him in handcuffs, they allegedly pushed his face to the ground and kicked the side of his knee.
“I didn’t know if I was going to live or die,” Mitchell said.
The police walked Mitchell over to a state trooper’s vehicle and proceeded to put his information in a laptop. They immediately found out that Mitchell wasn’t actually the person who fled the traffic stop and released him.
The police officers then made up reports by leaving out facts about their alleged assault of Mitchell.
Mitchell endured a torn meniscus from the incident, which caused him to miss his final track season and has negatively impacted his future in sports.
“These things need to be brought to the forefront so we can stop it. I don’t want this to happen to another young man,” his father, Shawn Mitchell Sr., said.
Mitchell said that he is still trying to move past the incident and its traumatizing effects.
“Afterwards, I had so much anger inside of me it was hard to even talk about the situation,” he said. “I was angry at the world for what I went through.”
For more information about personal injury claims, visit Cohen & Cohen
