8-year-old boy handcuffed by Chicago police, lawsuit says

An 8-year-old boy was handcuffed and made to stand in the frigid rain on the South Side during a botched police raid in March, lawyers for the boy’s family claim in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

“I felt very afraid, terrified,” the boy’s mother, Alberta Wilson, told reporters during a news conference at her lawyer’s downtown office.

Scores of Chicago police officers descended on Wilson’s home in the the 8900 block of South Laflin Street and ordered Wilson and her family out of the home at gunpoint, according to the suit.

“Once the family reached the street, police handcuffed them,” the suit states. “Officers handcuffed short, 8-year-old Royal for no reason for approximately 35 to 40 minutes while he stood in the street shaking from fear and cold and drenched in the freezing rain. The handcuffs were too tight, and his wrist bruised.”

Provided photo

Others were handcuffed outside for up to two hours, according to the lawsuit. Police searched the home but never found the guns they were looking for, said Al Hofeld Jr., the family’s lawyer.

Hofeld said the case, and others he has filed, point to the urgent need for strict rules and training for Chicago police when they deal with children.

Wilson’s children all now suffer symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome, Hofeld said.

“In Chicago, we are still in the dark ages when it comes to policing and children,” Hofeld said.

The Chicago Law Department had no immediate comment.