A Chicago police officer is facing dismissal for allegedly beating a woman with a baton and wrongfully arresting her during a protest that followed the police killing of George Floyd.
The recommendation from police Supt. David Brown comes four years after the officer, James Hunt, was suspended when he was caught on camera yelling, “I kill motherf------,” an apparent reference to a 17-year-old boy Hunt fatally shot while on duty.
In a letter to the Chicago Police Board dated Dec. 6, Brown said he was seeking Hunt’s dismissal for beating the woman the night of May 30, 2020, in the first block of West Kinzie Street.
Hunt has been stripped of his police powers during an investigation of the incident. His attorney, Jim McKay, declined to comment Thursday.
On Aug. 24, 2014, Hunt shot and killed DeSean Pittman, firing 11 times after watching the armed teen fire off shots in an alley off 80th Street between Ingleside and Ellis avenues. The Independent Police Review Authority, which previously investigated police misconduct cases, found that the use of force was justified.
But Hunt came under scrutiny again when he was captured in a viral video taken July 3, 2018, shouting profanities and threatening to arrest people who accused him of trying to hit them with his police SUV.
“I kill motherf------,” he was heard saying before stepping out of his SUV and walking with two people, calling one of them a “retard.”
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the agency that now conducts misconduct investigations, recommended a one-year suspension, though the local CBS affiliate reported he was fighting the disciplinary recommendation.
Hunt now faces nine separate charges related to the alleged beating and wrongful arrest five days after Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, setting off nationwide protests against police brutality and calls for racial justice.
Hunt broke out the woman’s rear driver’s side window, pulled her up using her wrists and hair and used a baton to strike her in her legs “without justification,” according to the charges filed by Brown.
He then failed to get her medical help while arresting her “without justification,” calling her a “fat b----.”
Hunt physically blocked her from recording the confrontation and failed to inventory her property or complete a required report, Brown stated.
The superintendent concluded his six-page letter by recommending that Hunt be “discharged from the Chicago Police Department.”
Hunt will now be the subject of an evidentiary hearing before the police board rules on his fate.
