Prosecutors Won't Press Charges Against Boy Who Allegedly Threw A Snowball At A Cop

By Jeremy GornerTribune reporter

The 13-year-old boy had been singled out last month for hitting a Chicago police officer with a snowball about a block from his West Side elementary school.

“I thought he was going to drive me around the corner and say, ‘Don’t do it again” or “Don’t let me see you back around here making trouble,’” the boy said. But the officer fired questions at him for about half an hour while he sat in the back of the squad car with his hands cuffed, according to the boy.

He was then taken home briefly before being hustled to a police station, arrested for aggravated battery to a police officer and released to his mother after about six hours in a lockup, his family said.

The incident drew media attention and sparked questions about whether a juvenile with no previous arrests should face a felony charge for throwing a snowball, even at a cop. Experts contacted by the Tribune expressed surprise at how police handled the case.

“I can understand why police officers can feel the need to ensure that their authority is respected, but I do think that just looking at the nature of the charge, it sounds pretty extreme,” said Bruce Boyer, director of Loyola University Chicago’s Civitas ChildLaw Center.

The Cook County state’s attorney’s office apparently agrees. Office spokeswoman Sally Daly told the Tribune that prosecutors don’t plan to press charges against the boy.

“We just don’t believe the matter rises to any level of a criminal charge based on our review,” said Daly, who indicated that prosecutors would let the boy know he won’t have to appear for a scheduled court appearance next week at the county Juvenile Justice Center.

Adam Collins, the spokesman for police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, said the boy’s conduct could have been “extremely dangerous” since the officer was driving at the time. But since the officer was not injured, Collins acknowledged, “the incident could probably have been handled in a different manner.”

The police officer who made the arrest, a nine-year veteran, declined to comment to a reporter who tried to talk to him by phone about his reasons for making the arrest.

During a recent interview at their Austin neighborhood home, the 13-year-old boy and his mother said they were baffled by the arrest. The newspaper is not identifying the family because the boy is only a juvenile. The lanky eighth grader denied he threw the snowball and said it didn’t even hit the officer, striking his police car instead. He said he was with a group of about 15 students near George Leland Elementary School after classes on Feb. 19 and that he didn’t see who threw the snowball.

Police officers have discretion on whether to arrest minors or release them to their parents. Often juveniles are given a “station adjustment” – in which police make a record of an arrest but release the minor to their parents without referring the case to juvenile court. If the minor goes to court, however, a point system -- based on the severity of the charge and criminal history -- determines if a juvenile should be held in the detention facility. Juveniles who don’t score high are sent home with new court dates.

For more than a century, Cook County’s juvenile court has operated on the understanding that children possessed great potential for rehabilitation. As a result, the court often tries to find an alternative to incarceration such as community service or simple apologies, said Elizabeth Clarke, a former Cook County assistant public defender who represented juveniles.

The 13-year-old boy was suspended from school for five days and fears the arrest and discipline could mar his chances at getting accepted into Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, regarded as one of the city’s best schools. The boy said he gets Bs, Cs and a couple of As in school, enjoys reading but is struggling with algebra. While on suspension, he said he sat around his apartment listening to rap music, watching movies and playing “NBA 2K 2014“ on his Xbox 360.

According to a police report, the school’s dean of students identified the boy to the officer as the one who threw the snowball. Police said the snowball hit the officer on his arm while he was driving by in his car. The boy said the dean had gotten angry at him earlier that same day and admitted he had talked back to him.

Leland, located in the 4900 block of West Congress Parkway, is one of more than 50 Chicago public schools part of the Safe Passage program – a security initiative that requires a police presence at the school before and after classes.

The boy denied he belongs to a gang in his crime-ridden neighborhood. He thinks he was targeted because he was the only one in the group of about 15 youths who had his hair in dreadlocks. Police, he said, often harass teens in his neighborhood with dreads, assuming they’re up to no good.

The boy’s mother, who is raising him and his sister on her own, also expressed concern that the incident could hurt her son’s chances of qualifying for Whitney Young. A manager at a Popeye’s chicken restaurant, she said she’s never been happy with life on the West Side because of the violence and bad schools.

“I want to move far out. I want to do better. I’m trying,” she said in a somber tone. “It’s upsetting. It’s stressful.”

 Rosemary Regina Sobol contributed.