Body camera footage released last week shows a Chicago police SUV running over a Black woman in the South Shore neighborhood on Nov. 13, 2019. The city had fought to keep the video private until a judge ordered it to be released.
The footage shows Martina Standley, 32, approach a squad car, reach for the spotlight and knock on the windshield. The car suddenly pulled forward, knocking Standley down. She was knocked unconscious as her head hit the pavement, and her leg was pinned under the vehicle.
The officer then got out of the vehicle, and walked to where the woman lay bleeding. “Girl, ain’t nobody hit you like that,” he said before he saw her.
After spotting her, the officer called for an ambulance. He can be heard saying he intended to put the car in reverse.
“An accident, uh, we hit a pedestrian that was banging on the car,” he told the dispatcher.
Standley was hospitalized for a month with a head injury and underwent surgery and major rehab after the incident, but she has not been able to go back to work. She has sued the city and will give her deposition this week.
“Martina Standley is lucky to be alive today because that officer used that vehicle as a weapon, and Martina did not do anything to provoke that type of response,” Andrew Stroth, Standley’s attorney, said last week.
The footage was made public by community activist William Calloway, who filed a Freedom of Information request for the video days after Standley was hit by the vehicle. When police denied the request, Calloway sued.
In August, a judge ordered the release of the video, but Calloway said the redacted footage was too blurry to view. After a judge ordered the release on the unredacted footage, Calloway released it to the public.
Calloway was also instrumental in the legal fight that led to the release of the footage of the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, who was killed by a white CPD officer in 2014.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Tuesday that she has not seen the video and is not familiar with the Standley case.
Last month, Lightfoot came under scrutiny when footage of a 2019 botched police raid that left an innocent woman handcuffed naked in her apartment in front of multiple male officers was made public. Lightfoot originally said she was unfamiliar with the case, but later admitted she had known about it previously.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which declined to release the video of the Standley incident because it didn’t match specified criteria, is conducting an investigation to see if officers engaged in misconduct or were inattentive in their duties
