Muslim woman mistaken for terrorist sues Chicago officers

Lawsuit accuses officers of excessive force, false arrest, violation of and freedom of religious expression

A young Muslim woman on Thursday sued Chicago police who mistakenly identified her as a potential "lone wolf" terrorist as she was leaving a city subway station last year on July 4 wearing a face veil and carrying a backpack.

"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," according to a federal lawsuit filed in Chicago on her behalf. Itemid Al-Matar says officers violated her civil rights by pulling off her religious garb as they arrested her on a subway station staircase, then strip-searched her later at a police station.



Security-camera video showed 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 court filing says that Al-Matar wearing a niqab  "was the impetus behind the actions."

In a statement Thursday, Phil Robertson, a lawyer for the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations or 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 the Fourth of July holiday when they spotted Al-Matar exhibiting what they believed was "suspicious behaviour," 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. As a result, "[Officers] believed that subject might be a lone wolf suicide bomber and decided to attempt to take subject into custody," it says.

A K-9 unit searched for explosive materials, the report says, "with negative result." It was found that "the objects strapped around arrestee's ankles" turned out to be "ankle weights." But Al-Matar was still charged, including with obstructing justice after police accused her of resisting and refusing to comply with orders. She was acquitted on all charges at a state trial earlier this year.



Thursday's lawsuit names six officers and the city of Chicago as defendants, accusing them of excessive force, false arrest, violation of freedom of religious expression and malicious prosecution. A police spokesperson declined to comment specifically on the suit, saying the department doesn't comment on pending litigation. However, the police did issue a brief written statement that says "officers work hard each day to investigate suspicious activity and fight crime and we strive to treat all individuals with the highest levels of dignity of respect."

This article originally appeared on ABC News.