This is reprinted from an email I received. This situation is ridiculous to say the least!!!
We have it hard enough out there doing our jobs, protecting communities, taking scum off the streets, so that others could live without fear.   This Officer was doing his job.
In Oct 2006, the offender and another teenager were shooting out car windows when they shot out the car window of an off duty Park Ridge Police Officer’s vehicle with a projectile. The off duty Police Officer and responding units chased the two offenders, when one of the offender’s decided to run and resist arrest. The offender was charged with two counts of felony criminal damage to property, two counts of reckless conduct and one count of resisting a peace officer. The offender received minor bruising and scraping to his face as a result of his actions, and resisting arrest. The offender never requested medical attention nor went to the hospital immediately following this incident. The offender admitted to this incident in court and paid restitution to the vehicle owners, including the off duty Officer.
An internal investigation was attempted, in which the offender and his family, after numerous attempts,  refused to cooperate with.
In Oct 2007, 1 YEAR, after this incident, the offender and his family file a law suit against the City of Park Ridge and the officers involved. The State’s Attorney’s office is now mysteriously interested in this case and decides to open an investigation, 1 year later. –AN OFFENDER, SHOOTING AT CAR WINDOWS, COMMITTING A CRIME, AND MINOR INJURY TO THE OFFENDER AS A RESULT OF HIM RESISTING ARREST.
In Jan 2010 The Park Ridge Police Dept and the City of Park Ridge settle a lawsuit with the offender, a tactic commonly used to avoid the numerous costs of going to trial.
OCT 2010, 4 YEARS AFTER THIS INCIDENT, LT. JASON LEAVITT IS INDICTED FOR AGGRAVATED BATTERY AND OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT.
On Monday, Oct 15th, 2010,  Jason Leavitt had to go and turn himself in at 26th and California to be arraigned in front of a judge. To face the possibility of losing his job, his income to support his family, and now have to come up with a minimum of $30,000 to start, to defend the lawful action that he took, chasing an offender committing numerous felonies, not knowing if the offender is armed,  in the course of his duties.
All the times we have gone to court, walking through those hallways, riding up the elevators with the filth that we arrest.
I could not fathom how embarrassing and humiliating this must be to Jason Leavitt.
I am embarrassed and disgusted to work in a climate where the State’s Attorney’s office chooses to spend it’s time prosecuting a Decorated Police Officer over criminals, a Police Officer who has dedicated his life and has put his life on the line for law enforcement and the community.
I’ve seen some ridiculous moves by the State’s Attorney’s office, but this incident, along with a few others, makes me want to re-evaluate how aggressive of a Police Officer I want to be in the future.
I am good friends with many State’s Attorneys, I am not lumping them all together, some of them are good at their jobs, some not, same with Police Officers. We all know that there are dirty Police Officers out there, and I am in NO WAY sticking up for or defending them when I ask for your support for the injustice that is taking place here, with this incident.
I have to repeat, a 4 YEAR INVESTIGATION FOR AN OFFENDER, COMMITTING NUMEROUS FELONIES, WITH MINOR INJURIES AS A RESULT OF HIS DECISION TO RESIST A POLICE OFFICER.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?? DO YOU THINK THIS OFFENDER AND HIS FAMILY MIGHT BE FRIENDS WITH SOMEONE?
JASON LEAVITT IS A LT WITH THE PARK RIDGE POLICE DEPT, RECIPIENT OF THE MEDAL OF HONOR(NIPIS), MEDAL OF VALOR FROM COOK COUNTY SHERIFF’S POLICE, VFW STATE OF ILLINOIS OFFICER OF THE YEAR,THE MEDAL OF VALOR FROM THE ILLINOIS TACTICAL OFFICERS ASSOCIATION( AFTER SHOOTING AND KILLING AN OFFENDER IN A BARRICADE STANDOFF IN 2000 ), RECENTLY PROMOTED TO TEAM COMMANDER OF THE NIPAS (NORTHERN ILLINOIS POLICE ALARM SYSTEM) EMERGENCY SERVICES TEAM(SWAT)  , A 17YR POLICE VETERAN, A HUSBAND AND A FATHER.
THIS COULD BE ANY ONE OF US.
PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT
BENEFIT INFORMATION WILL BE FORTH COMING
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND BE SAFE
First of all you are purposely leaving out and ignoring RELEVANT AND IMPORTANT FACTS to attempt to make your point that a misjustice was some how done to this officer. You need to use ALL the facts. If you have a issue with the cop being charged- okay, BUT when you are purposely omitting, twisting and attempting to hide relevant information (and frankly if you are gonna put it on the internet with your name and you don’t have the common sense it takes to check your facts because “ZOMG EVERYTHING I GET IN EMAIL FWD’S IS ALWAYS 100% FACTUAL!” well it’s just a little sad. Clearly someone should be better monitoring your use of the interwebz since you aren’t bright enough to do so yourself).
First of all, the SUSPECTS were two 15 year old boys. Secondly they were “shooting” at the car with a SLINGSHOT! Does that make them any less guilty of that crime? Nope, but it is absolutely relevant information, the age of the suspects and the ACTUAL CRIME they committed along with the PERTINENT facts you seems unable to reprint properly are very important. There’s a big difference between some dumb fifteen year old boys committing vandalism with a slingshot and some rocks and a few adult grown men shooting at cars with guns which is the way you lead the readers of this trash to believe. They knocked out Leavitt’s back window with their slingshot while sitting in a cemetary after sneaking out of one of the boy’s homes. Did they deserve to be caught, detained, arrested? Yes. Did they deserve to be beaten? NO. Cops have a DUTY as officers to withhold the law and to not abuse their power- beating KIDS and calling it “duty” is b.s. Standing blindly behind the “BLUE WALL” supporting a corrupt and out of line officer is dumba$$ary of the worst degree. If you think you have the right to beat young teens after they have been arrested and are subdued YOU SHOULD NOT BE IN UNIFORM GETTING PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS WHOSE TRUST YOU ARE ABUSING.
Secondly, the BOYS who were underage were BEATEN repeatedly by the cop as witnessed by OTHER COPS who had to pull him off. He wasn’t subduing the suspects- he was punching an unconscious kid after hitting him in the back of head during his escape and knocking him out. He had to be pulled off by another officer- he continued to attempt to punch the teen while the officer was trying to put the teenager in the back of a squad car and ignoring the officer blocking him and trying to calm him down. THEN after the other teen was captured by a different officer and was subdued and handcuffed the cop who was “just doing his job” went over and began kicking the handcuffed teen in the head. He then went and was punching and choking the teen, who was still hancuffed and subdued, in the back of the squad car. When the teen attempted to move to the other side of the car to get away from being hit the officer opened the other door and started hitting him AGAIN. All while 11 other officers looked on. When the teens were brought in only one was properly booked while the teen who Leavitt had beaten was NOT photographed and was not offered medical attention. He was ordered to wash up and put into a cell. It was discovered the next day that the teen had suffered a concussion. And although I know that you would love to keep trumpeting how this cop got a “raw deal” and some judge took some delinquent kids side over his- the fact is that the evidence, witnesses who gave statements, and one of the cops who was present during the teens arrest all attested that Leavitt was out of control and attested to his actions and his misuse of force with two minors. The officer willingly reported the entire set of events to supervision because this cop was out of control. It was not just he said/he said. There was not just a kid saying “Oh he beat me up.” GMAFB here. That doesn’t even make sense.
YOU should not be protecting or standing up for officers who believe their line of duty puts them above the law and allows for this type of unprovoked and unnecessary violence and violation of someone’s basic HUMAN RIGHTS. Do officers have a hard job? You bet. Does that mean that when an officer violates his oath to serve and protect it should be ignored? HELL NO. He used a violent and totally unnecessary level of force, taking out pent up aggression on smaller minor boys- and chances are this wasn’t the first time he had been accused or questioned about using more force than he should have. Many of these officers who do this are protected by their own, only to create huge scandals when they are finally caught and the paper trail of issues is discovered and brought to light. Police officers SHOULD be held to a higher standard. Subduing a suspect is one thing, mercilessly beating two kids for having the audacity to use a sling shot and break your window- WTF? And btw, for future email forwards you should check snopes.com so you don’t look like such a doucherocket on the interwebz AGAIN.
My first reaction to this news was that something is fishy if it takes four years to indict someone. My second reaction was that if someone shot the window of my car with a slingshot, I might be hard pressed to identify the offenders weapon immediately – the kids are fortunate they weren’t shot at. All I can say is, April, spoken like a true enabler of juvenile delinquents. This could have been far more tragic had the teenagers caused a perfectly innocent driver to wreck their car. I think there’s probably a lot more to the story, and here we have kids that were able to resist arrest and cash in on it.