A Chicago mother of two has filed a lawsuit against the village of Skokie after she was forced to have reconstructive surgery because an officer shoved her face into a concrete bench.
At a press conference this week, Cassandra Feuerstein admitted that she voluntarily pulled over and fell asleep in her car because she realized she had too much to drink last March. Officers discovered her and booked her on DUI charges.
“Apparently I was not looking into the camera the way the officer wanted me to,” Feuerstein explained to WBBM.
A complaint filed by the Skokie Police Department claimed that she had resisted Officer Michael Hart by placing her hands on the side of the door when he returned her to her cell. In video obtained by Feuerstein’s lawyer, Hart can be seen giving the woman a hard shove, sending her face first into a concrete bench on the other side of the cell.
Within minutes, blood pools around Feuerstein’s head as she lays on the floor.
She recalled that the incident “shattered my orbital bones, broke my orbital floor, both shattered and pushed in my cheek bone.”
Cook County prosecutors later dismissed charges that she had resisted police. Feuerstein’s lawsuit was seeking unspecified damages.
Watch this video from WBBM, broadcast Oct. 9, 2013.
