There is astonishing new news coverage from Scripps News of the atrocious case of Hadi Abuatelah.
If you will recall, in Oak Lawn, Illinois last July, 17-year-old Hadi Abuatelah ran from police during a traffic stop. He then resisted arrest while in possession of a loaded, and illegal pistol. Police dashcam video captured all of this.
But none of that matters to the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) who want arresting officer Patrick O’Donnell fired. In fact, CAIR has succeeded in getting State District Attorney Kim Foxx to charge O’Donnell with aggravated battery and official misconduct.
Now comes footage of the good Muslim people of Oak Lawn, Illinois responding to a video montage of police officers killed while encountering strangers. In unison, they chant “Shut down the video! Shut down the video!” And we see the cops, quite justifiably, seething in the presence of this obnoxious crowd.
Outside the meeting where the police video was shown, Muhammad Sankari, Lead Organizer with the Arab American Action Network, rabbled roused, saying:
The police force know they have absolutely no justification for what Patrick O’Donnell did!
Actually, that is an inversion of the truth. Sankari and CAIR have absolutely no justification for what Hadi Abuatelah did.
There are also images of 40 uniformed police officers making a protective barrier around Patrick O’Donnell when he appeared in court.
Scripps News asked Emma Melton, Staff Attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, about the gun and police concerns for their safety.
“We all saw the footage,” Melton said. “I’ve seen it from multiple different angles, from the squad car cameras to the bystander videos, and at no point do I see him reaching for a gun.”
Anyone who watched the video saw Abuatelah resisting arrest as well as officers picking a gun off the ground at the scene (@1:53). But CAIR counters this by saying the police dashcam video was “edited” and lacks “context.”
Melton goes on to say that:
Arab-American residents have long complained about the Oak Lawn Police Department. A lot of the police officers in that area are actually White, and so when dealing with people from another background, sometimes a lot of the cultural awareness and sensitivity can be lost.
While she is saying this, Scripps News shows us images of the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation. The Bridgeview Mosque is the mosque stolen from American Muslims by the Muslim Brotherhood, as was reported in the Chicago Tribune. Bridgeview is less than 15 minutes away from Oak Lawn.
It is just incomprehensible that TV stations would abet this attempted robbery of the city of Oak Lawn, the destruction of Patrick O’Donnell’s career, and the sowing of distrust and resentment towards the police, as well as anti-white racism.
It is time for the rest of us to start speaking in one voice to the TV network affiliates: stop patronizing CAIR and endangering the public.
“Tension is building between Arab-Americans and police near Chicago,” by Ben Schamisso, Scripps News, March 10, 2023:
In the southwest Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, tensions are boiling between Arab-American activists and police.
Activists have been showing up at every police and fire commission meeting since the violent arrest of a Palestinian-American teenager last July.
Last week, chaos erupted after police supporters used their public comment time to show a video montage of officers getting killed in other cities.
“The police force knows that they have absolutely no justification for what Patrick O’Donnell did,” said Muhammad Sankari, lead organizer of the Arab American Action Network.
Hours before the public meeting, Oak Lawn police officer Patrick O’Donnell appeared in court surrounded by around 40 other officers. He pleaded not guilty to aggravated battery and official misconduct for his involvement in the beating of 17-year-old Hadi Abuatelah. No other officers have been charged.
Last summer, a bystander video of the beating sparked outrage in the Arab-American community.
According to prosecutors, O’Donnell is seen punching Abuatelah more than 10 times in the head while another officer kneels on the teenager’s legs. A third officer later joins in. O’Donnell uses his taser on Abuatelah, who was later hospitalized for six days for a fracture to his pelvis, a broken nose and internal bleeding of his brain.
The incident started with police pulling over a car they say lacked a license plate and smelled of cannabis.
A squad car camera shows Abuatelah running away.
After catching up with him, the officers say Abuatelah reached for his shoulder bag. Police say they later recovered a loaded gun inside that bag.
Oak Lawn police chief Daniel Vittorio defended his officers’ actions the day after the arrest.
“Had the offender drawn that weapon, he could have shot them,” Vittorio said. “Were they supposed to wait for him to pull it out and then?”
Emma Melton of the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Abuatelah against the village of Oak Lawn and the three officers involved in the beating.
“We all saw the footage,” Melton said. “I’ve seen it from multiple different angles, from the squad car cameras to the bystander videos, and at no point do I see him reaching for a gun. Hearing that the chief of police agreed with this level of use of force and how these officers interacted with Hadi shows that this is something that could and probably will happen again.”
Melton says Arab-American residents have long complained about the Oak Lawn Police Department.
“A lot of the police officers in that area are actually White, and so when dealing with people from another background, sometimes a lot of the cultural awareness and sensitivity can be lost,” Melton said….
fadeye@yahoo.com says
Mozlems are some of the most racist terrorists you’ll ever meet.
Huapakechi says
And they enjoy the status of professional victims, even when they perpetrate violence.
OLD GUY says
Let’s see if you are white you lose cultural sensitivity and awareness automatically. If you are a person of color as you burn down the neighborhood, throw bricks and and shoot off fireworks at the police you are culturally sensitive and a good citizen.
Golem2 says
Arab-American residents have long complained
Sounds right