Muslim woman sues Chicago police

CHICAGO: A young Muslim woman has sued Chicago police who mistakenly identified her briefly as a potential “lone wolf” terrorist as she was leaving a city subway station last year wearing a headscarf, face veil and carrying a backpack.
Itemid Al-Matar said officers violated her civil rights by pulling off her religious garb as they arrested her on subway station stairs, then strip-searched her later at a police station, according to the federal lawsuit filed in Chicago on her behalf.
“Several (officers) ran up the stairs and grabbed the plaintiff and threw her down upon the stair landing, then pulling at her and ripping off her hijab.” it said.
Security-camera video made public, shows several minutes of the arrest in the subway.
Several officers can be seen pushing through a crowd on a stairway to reach Al-Matar, but soon move out of view of the camera.
The fact that Al-Matar was wearing a headscarf “was the impetus behind the actions” of the officers, the court filing alleges.
In a statement, Phil Robertson, a lawyer for the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a co-counsel in the civil case, argued that “blatant xenophobia, Islamophobia, and racial profiling” underpinned the officers’ actions.
A police report filed the night of the incident says officers had been “on high alert of terrorist activity” on July 4 holiday when they spotted Al-Matar exhibiting what they believed was “suspicious behavior,” including walking at “a brisk pace, in a determined manner.”
It also says officers saw what they thought could be “incendiary devices” around her ankles and were also suspicious of her backpack, which was clutched to her chest.