A lawsuit accusing Chicago police of false arrest has been filed a day after murder charges were dropped against a mother and her 14-year-old son in the shooting of a man who attacked her at a South Side hot dog stand.
“Everything I worked hard for has been tarnished,” Carlishia Hood said of her arrest at a news conference Tuesday at her attorney’s law office in Bronzeville.
The lawsuit claims Hood was falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted, causing her to suffer emotional distress. It seeks more than $50,000 in damages.
The suit says police sought charges against Hood “for which they knew there was no probable cause,” saying video footage of the shooting “completely exculpated Carlishia Hood.”
While the suit contends the arrest was “without legal justification,” it doesn’t address the fact that police sought and received approval for the charges from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
The lawsuit repeatedly misspells the name of the man who was killed, Jeremy Brown, 32, referring to him throughout as “Jerome Brown.”
Hood sobbed after giving a statement, and her attorneys said she would take no questions during the news conference.
Hood, 35, had been standing in line for food at a Maxwell Street Express at 11656 S. Halsted St. on June 18 when she became involved in an argument with Brown, 32, prosecutors said when she was charged.
Prosecutors said surveillance video shows Brown punching Hood repeatedly in the head before her 14-year-old son enters the restaurant and shoots Brown. Her son continued firing as Brown ran into a parking lot while being pursued by the teen and his mother, according to prosecutors.
Hood was accused of urging her son to keep shooting Brown and to kill him. She also allegedly told her son to shoot Brown’s girlfriend, who allegedly had been egging Brown on during the confrontation.
Hood and her son left and returned home, prosecutors said.
Judge Barbara Dawkins set Hood’s bail at $3 million at a hearing last week, where Hood faced charges of first-degree murder and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Hood’s son was also charged with murder in Juvenile Court, as well as weapons violations.
But on Monday, prosecutors announced they were dropping the charges against Hood and her son, citing “emerging evidence” in the case.
Prosecutors did not specify what that evidence was, but the announcement came days after a video apparently recorded by a bystander began circulating on social media.
Defense attorney Ari Williams declined to say why Hood left the scene of the shooting and went home instead of waiting for police to arrive. “There’s video of this, so we don’t have to go into great detail,” Williams said.
Attorney Brandon Brown, who filed the lawsuit, told reporters, “What we don’t want to do is have a nuanced legal discussion here at a press conference.”
Hood and her attorneys repeatedly thanked State’s Attorney Kim Foxx for dropping the charges, but they declined to say whether Foxx was personally involved in the decision and would not address her office’s decision to file charges initially.
A spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office declined to answer questions about Foxx’s role in the decision.
‘Women better hope there’s a video’
Mark Lewis, director of holistic legal services at the nonprofit Lawndale Christian Legal Center, said prosecutors acted too quickly to bring charges against the mother and her son. The legal center was researching the case to potentially represent the teen when Lewis said their attorneys reviewed video of the incident.
“This woman experienced a brutal attack,” Lewis said. “Both she and her son were charged too rapidly when there should have been further investigation.”
Lewis was also critical of the bail Hood was given, calling it “the same as no bail” because Hood wasn’t able to pay the required $300,000 to be released. The same judge in October set bail at $2 million for a pregnant woman facing a first-degree murder charge in a similar case.
Keshia Golden, then eight months pregnant, fatally stabbed her boyfriend in the thigh after they got into a violent argument and the boyfriend, Calvin Sidney, shoved her into a counter. At the time, Golden had an order of protection out against Sidney, who was repeatedly accused of physically abusing Golden, including causing Golden to miscarry during an earlier pregnancy, according to Assistant Public Defender Julie Koehler.
Another judge reduced Golden’s bail to $50,000 and she was released when a community group posted her bond on her behalf. Unlike in Hood’s case, the state’s attorney’s office is still attempting to convict Golden of murder.
“In both cases, the women were being beaten by men and legally defended themselves,” Koehler said Tuesday. “Sadly for Keshia, no video of her boyfriend beating her exists because the crime happened in her home.
“I guess the moral of the story is that women better hope there’s a video when they must legally defend themselves from violent aggressors in order to be believed,” she said.
