The parents of a teenage boy who was pinned to the ground last summer by an off-duty Chicago police officer vowed to “continue to fight” Friday after a judge found Sgt. Micheal Vitellaro not guilty of battery and official misconduct charges.
Video of the confrontation between the officer and the teen went viral last August when Vitellaro was seen holding the boy to the ground with his knee and accusing him of stealing his son’s bike.
Cook County prosecutors previously said Vitellaro found the bike outside a Starbucks coffee shop at 100 S. Northwest Highway in suburban Park Ridge after his son told him he left it unattended in front of the local library.
An investigation later determined that a different boy had taken the bike, but Vitellaro confronted the 14-year-old when he allegedly saw the boy touch the bike.
The boy’s family questioned whether Vitellaro, who is white, had targeted their son, who is of Puerto Rican descent, in the incident and called the officer’s actions “an abuse of power, not just without probable cause but with zero cause.”
But Judge Paul Pavlus said he saw no evidence that Vitellaro had targeted the teenager for any reason other than he believed his son’s bike was stolen.
Pavlus conceded that “as a parent I would be outraged” by the image of an adult officer on top of the teenager but said that after viewing multiple videos of the incident and listening to witness testimony during the bench trial that image didn’t “come close to describing what really happened.”
The state’s attorney’s office, the judge said, had not proven its case. While prosecutors had tried to portray Vitellaro as “out of control,” the judge said he saw no evidence of that.
In addition, a key expert witness for the state on police use of force had not seen the full videos or produced a written report for the court, Pavlus said.
The actions of the group of boys, including a different teenager who appeared to have taken the officer’s son’s bike for a “joy ride” after finding it outside the library, amounted to “boys being boys, kids being kids,” according to the judge.
But Pavlus said he didn’t find the testimony of the boy or his friends who witnessed the confrontation credible, noting multiple times in his ruling that he believed the teens had changed their stories and had appeared to have forgotten key details of the incident in their re-telling of it on the stand.
The judge further suggested the teens may have felt pressured to testify a certain way, pointing out the family of the 14-year-old had secured an attorney to represent him in a possible civil lawsuit and that a GoFundMe account was started to raise $10,000 after the incident.
In the end, the judge said, the teen hadn’t been physically hurt by the officer.
“You’re free,” Pavlus told Vitellaro after finding him not guilty of all the charges. “I hope you can put this behind you.”
The officer’s defense attorney, James McKay, praised the judge for “doing the right thing” and said Vitellaro and his family were “very happy, very grateful to the judge.”
After the hearing, the teen’s parents, Angel and Nicole Nieves, said they felt the judge had spent more time attacking their son and questioning his actions than those of the officer.
“My son gets attacked over a piece of property? My son gets attacked over a piece of property, and somehow he’s the one who’s wrong here?” Nicole Nieves said while fighting tears.
Attorney Antonio Romanucci speaks to reporters Friday after a Cook County judge found a Chicago Police sergeant not guilty on counts of battery and official misconduct stemming from an incident last summer in Park Ridge when the off-duty officer was recorded on video pinning a 14-year-old boy to the ground.
The family’s attorney, Antonio Romanucci, said it was “appalling” to listen to the judge’s ruling and said the teen’s family would bring a civil case against the officer.
Vitellaro “had no right, no legal right to do what he did to their child,” Romanucci said while pointing to the teen’s parents.
After the incident, Vitellaro was relieved of his police powers. McKay said he didn’t immediately know whether the officer wanted to return to work for the city amid an ongoing investigation into his actions by the department.
A spokeswoman for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which also investigated, said their findings were sent to the Chicago police superintendent in March for consideration.
