Chicago cop shown kneeling on 14-year-old's back in viral video faces dismissal

The Chicago Police Department is seeking to fire a sergeant who was shown in a viral video kneeling on the back of a 14-year-old boy he believed was trying to ride off on his son’s bike in Park Ridge.

The process of firing Sgt. Michael Vitellaro for allegedly using excessive force and lying about what happened was already in motion when he was acquitted last June on criminal charges stemming from the incident on July 1, 2022.

However, formal disciplinary charges seeking his dismissal still haven’t been filed or made public.

Vitellaro was off duty when he learned his son‘s bike had been stolen and drove to a Starbucks at 100 S. Northwest Highway in Park Ridge, where someone had brought it, police oversight officials said in a report obtained through a public records request.

When the 14-year-old hopped off his own bike and tried to move Vitellaro’s son’s bike, the sergeant grabbed the boy and performed a takedown. Cellphone video showed the boy lying facedown on the ground with Vitellaro’s knee on his back, according to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

The video also showed Vitellaro getting into an altercation with a group of kids, who witnesses said repeatedly asked him “to leave them alone,” COPA said in the report. After the incident, Vitellaro admonished the 14-year-old and made inflammatory comments that were captured on a responding officer’s body camera.

“He had that ‘Oh s---’ look on his face,” Vitellaro said. “He’s like, ‘Oh I’m busted. I’m f-----.”

Vitellaro told Park Ridge police that he was merely defending his son, who he said has a rare medical condition. But he “failed to provide consistent accounts of the incident across multiple statements” to police, COPA said.

He initially acknowledged that he performed a takedown on the 14-year-old. But after learning the video existed, he later told police the boy fell on his own, COPA said. He made the same claim in reports he filed at the Near North District, where he was assigned at the time.

When Park Ridge police pressed him on the conflicting stories a month after the incident, Vitellaro “waffled between the two narratives, ultimately saying he could not recall,” the report states. Only his son corroborated his account that the other boy had fallen down.

COPA concluded he had “grabbed [the boy’s] arm, performed an armbar, brought [the boy] facedown onto the ground, and then held [the boy] down by placing his knee on [the boy’s] back. [The boy] did not pose a threat that Sgt. Vitellaro needed to stop.”

In calling for his dismissal in a March 2023 report, COPA sustained allegations that he used excessive force, engaged in an unnecessary verbal altercation, used unbecoming language and made false statements in his official reports and statements.

Other allegations weren’t sustained after COPA found Vitellaro was justified in detaining the boy and couldn’t prove that Vitellaro willfully lied when he claimed the boy mounted his son’s bike and tried to ride off.

On June 14, 2023, then-interim Chicago Police Supt. Fred Waller sent a letter to COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten that backed her agency’s findings and confirmed the department would “seek separation.” Disciplinary charges have not been filed with the Chicago Police Board, the body that, for now, rules on the gravest cases of police misconduct.

Two days after Waller’s letter, Cook County Circuit Judge Paul Pavlus found Vitellaro not guilty of battery and official misconduct. Pavlus said he saw no evidence that Vitellaro had targeted the boy for any reason other than he believed his son’s bike was stolen.

Vitellaro’s attorney, Jim McKay, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vitellaro remains on active duty in the department’s alternate response section, a unit staffed by cops with disciplinary issues and those not medically cleared for full duty. He earns an annual salary of $132,906, city records show.

The boy’s family sued Vitellaro and the city just weeks after Pavlus’ ruling. The case is ongoing.

COPA noted in its report that the boy’s mother, Nicole Nieves, showed up at the Starbucks after watching the video and was upset that Vitellaro had targeted the only “brown kid in this group.”

The family’s attorney, Javier Rodriguez, said the disciplinary recommendations align with their assertion that Vitellaro’s actions were “egregious and in violation of conduct for a reasonable officer.

“We have always known that as an officer, his conduct that day was utterly unreasonable,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “We are pleased with the possibility that this recommendation could be approved and Vitellaro would no longer be able to aggressively engage with children in our community under the color of law.”