Chicago Police Board President Ghian Foreman said Friday that officers hit him with batons last weekend as they clashed with protesters who marched on the South Side over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
What We Know:
- According to the Chicago Tribute, Foreman issued a statement Friday afternoon through the Police Board, he said he was not participating in the protest over Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, but “coincidentally encountered the demonstration when it became confrontational.”
- In a brief interview Friday afternoon, Foreman said he was struck five times in his legs with batons while going for a walk.
- “I walked in the middle of an uprising,” said Foreman, who lives near the site of the protest. “It was chaos. It was a no-win situation on both sides,” Foreman said of the protesters and police.
- In his statement, Foreman said the public’s interest with the incident may stem from his position working toward police accountability “and that it seems ironic that someone in a public-facing position could also become a victim of police aggression.”
- “This is the duality I live with as a Black man in America, even one who is privileged to be part of systems of power,” he said in his statement. “I am not exempt from what any other Black man faces on the streets.”
- Foreman acknowledged that Chicago activist Malcolm London was at the same protest, where London’s lawyers have said he also assaulted by police and arrested.
Foreman, appointed to the Police Board in 2010 by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley, declined to get into specifics about the incident, which is being investigated by the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability. But he said it’s important to focus on how aggressive confrontations such as this could be avoided.
