On the evening of June 29, Tiana Knight (also known as Nuks Dior), a 23-year-old queer person, and some friends and acquaintances were in Chicago’s Northalsted neighborhood in the hours after Chicago’s Pride Parade.
According to Knight, the group decided to head downtown at around 8 p.m. via the CTA and ended up on Lower Wacker Drive. Knight said that they “exchanged words” with one of the acquaintances who was with them. They added that “the argument got heated” and “the person I thought was my friend ended up hitting me on behalf of the person I had got into it with, so we all started fighting. They jumped on me and then the police came.”
Knight said Chicago Police officers put them and the other person who started the argument in handcuffs, but not the other people involved in the altercation. After a short time, Knight said the officers took the handcuffs off of both of them and then they started fighting again. This escalation led to Knight getting arrested and taken to jail that night, but not the other person who was also put in handcuffs. Knight told Windy City Times that the police officers left their belongings on the ground so they were without their handbag, phone and shoes following their arrest.
Additionally, Knight said they were “bruised up and my nails were broken off because I had fake nails at the time … and my eyes were swollen. I had scratches and bruises all over my body.”
Knight said they were not given any medical treatment after being taken into custody; photos taken the following day confirmed these injuries. They said they were held overnight and when they were released the following day pending trial on a misdemeanor aggravated battery charge, they had to ask someone to use their phone to contact their parents so they could pick them up and take them home. Knight was given an Aug. 22 court date upon release.
Their grandfather, activist and Chicago Torture Justice Center Founder Mark Clements (a survivor of the late convicted criminal and former Chicago Police Department Commander Jon Burge’s torture of over 100 people held in CPD police custody from 1972 to 1991) and other activists held a press conference on Aug. 22 in front of the Cook County Circuit Courthouse on 3150 W. Flournoy St. where the hearing was set to take place. Clements and others spoke about what they called an unlawful arrest.
“I was devastated and extremely terrified when I was arrested,” said Knight in a statement to Windy City Times. “This caused me to think upon the nightmare of my grandfather, who was just 16-years-old when he was arrested for a crime he did not commit and subsequently railroaded by a system that did not care about African American people. He was tortured by police and still, up until this date, none of the officers have ever been held accountable.
“After revealing what happened to me to my grandfather, he let me know that I had to fight the charges and that he would do all he knew to do to ensure that the charges would be dismissed. Of course, going to court, I did not know what would occur, but having my grandfather stand with me, I felt confident he would not accept anything but a dismissal. It took me three minutes from the time I walked inside the courthouse to hear what I wanted to hear, charges dismissed. I was happy that I could breathe just a little. It made me smile. I was glad to be able to attend a lunch with my grandfather and his friends that day as a free person.”
Knight told this publication that they will also be filing a discrimination complaint with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the Chicago Commission on Human Relations and the Illinois Department of Human Rights.