Chicago Police Release Video of Female Officer Being Attacked by Suspect
The suspect was allegedly high on PCP at the time of the incident.
— -- The Chicago Police Department released officers' dashboard- and body-camera footage of an altercation in which a suspect appears to beat a female officer while resisting arrest.
The video of the arrest and altercation on Oct. 5 shows officers struggling to detain a man whom police later identified as Parta Huff, 28, who police say was high on PCP at the time of the incident.
In the videos, as the officers bring Huff to the ground, he takes the female officer with him, smashing her head onto the pavement.
The videos also show officers attempting to handcuff Huff as he flails his free hand, and shifts his body underneath the pressure of an officer kneeling on him.
The kneeling officer repeatedly instructs Huff to stop resisting arrest, and screams can be heard throughout the video.
The female officer sustained injuries to her head and has been hospitalized for more than a week since the assault, according to ABC News station WLS TV in Chicago.
Huff has been charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery.
Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said this week that he spoke to the injured officer and that she did not fire her gun at the suspect because she feared public backlash and "didn't want to go through the scrutiny" that follows after an officer uses a firearm.
"She thought she was going to die. She knew that she should shoot this guy, but she chose not to, because she didn't want her family or the department to have to go through the scrutiny the next day on national news," Supt. Johnson told the media.
Stories of officer-involved shootings have been in the headlines for more than two years, sparking waves of protest in cities around the country, including Chicago.
The Chicago Tribune reported in August that the city had 435 officer-involved shootings over a recent six-year span, with 92 fatalities and roughly one bullet fired by police every five days.