The family of two Long Island teens are taking the Nassau County Police Department to court after they claim their sons were profiled, brutalized and wrongfully charged with assault.
Authorities arrested Ahmad Tillery, 15, and his brother, 14, and a third teen last week in connection to an assault on a 32-year-old Latino man. The teens were charged with the crime, but their parents insist they had nothing to do with it.
David and Mondy Tillery told CBS New York their sons are good students and active members of the Boy Scouts. The parents are now suing the police department, accusing officers of targeting their sons.
“They kidnapped them,” David Tillery also said of police, recalling how officers kept him and his wife in the dark while his boys were in custody.
The family’s attorney, Fred Brewington, also alleges the teens were “beaten, slammed on a car, slammed on the ground, abused, cursed at, mocked and then psychologically tortured for four or five hours,” during questioning by police.
The incident unfolded on Jan. 21 as the brothers and a third teen were out riding bikes at a nearby park. That’s when they say officers stopped and arrested them in the assault.
“You do not have the right to come into our community and just abuse our children,” Mondy Tillery said.
She said she feared her boys had been kidnapped, later realizing they were at the police precinct after a tracker on the teens’ cellphones led her and her husband there. Upon arrival, David Tillery said one of the officers asked him, “Did you know that your sons are part of a gang?”
“You mean, the Boy Scouts?” he replied.
Nassau County Police Department has denied any wrongdoing on their part and said the teens were picked up 10 minutes after the reported assault. In fact, authorities said they fit the description and that the victim had positively identified them as his attackers.
“The investigation has revealed that police officers acted within the scope of the law and exercised restraint and professionalism at the time of arrest,” Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said in a statement.
All three teens were taken into custody, one of them charged with resisting arrest after trying to flee the scene, police said. Authorities also deny using excessive force, adding that the Tillery sons signed a document stating they sustained no injuries.
“This document was signed by both the juvenile and his mother at the time he was released from police custody,” the department added.
Still, the Tillerys maintain their children’s innocence and argue that cellphone tracing proves their sons were at a friends house at the time of the attack.
“Not all black, African-American children are gang members,” David Tillery said. “You do have quality citizens like my boys. They’re Boy Scouts. They’re in a church choir.”
The incident remains under investigation.
Watch more in the video below.
