On Tuesday, August 25th, the racist Oak Lawn Police Department (OLPD) arrested Kobi Guillory, a Black teacher and leader in the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR), after he left the Oak Lawn Village Board of Trustees meeting. For over four years, the community has been protesting both the racist patterns and practices of OLPD and the village that refuses to hold criminal cops accountable.

The protest was organized by the AAAN, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, CAARPR, Southsiders for Peace, and others. Almost 20 people testified in public comment to the Oak Lawn mayor and trustees, demanding that the mayor clean up his racist police department and village.

When the meeting was over, OLPD then followed Guillory from the village hall in six squad cars, boxed in the vehicle he was traveling in, and threatened to smash the vehicle’s windows before forcing him into custody. Previously, as an attempted tactic of intimidation, OLPD showed up to question him at the school in Chicago where he works.

AAAN, Guillory and CAARPR, and the Palestinian community of Oak Lawn and the southwest suburbs have been protesting the OLPD and the Oak Lawn Fire and Police Commission meetings for years. Protests have called for the firing and charging of the white, racist officers involved in the brutalization and hospitalization of Palestinian teenager Hadi Abuatelah in 2022 (Abuatelah ultimately won over $800,000 in a settlement against the village); as well as accountability for racist decisions that led to Leanne Cusack – a white woman who had been drinking and murdered an Arab man, Murod Kurdi, with her car in 2023 – being allowed to walk away with only a speeding ticket. 

Guillory’s arrest is the latest in a string of retaliatory arrests and false charges against community members who have spoken out against these abuses. Two weeks ago, OLPD arrested the mother of a 14-year-old who was lifted off his feet, slammed into a counter, and placed in a chokehold by police while giving public comment at the commission meeting on August 5th. Right before the protest August 26 protest, police arrested a AAAN organizer.

“These frameups are a clear attempt by Oak Lawn and OLPD to skirt accountability for their racist abuse against Arab and other Black and brown community members, especially the criminal assault on the 14-year-old earlier this month,” said Nadiah Alyafai, another AAAN organizer. “And then OLPD puts out a statement yesterday attacking the AAAN, CAARPR, and other organizers for upholding our first amendment right to protest their racism. It’s just one Oak Lawn fail after another!”

Guillory and the fifty protesters who waited for him were undeterred following his release late Tuesday night. “We’re going to keep on showing up, we’re going to get this independent investigation of Oak Lawn PD, we’re going to clean this police department out from the top-down,” Guillory said.

AAAN, CAARPR, and their partners in the campaign will continue demanding that Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raul initiate an independent investigation into the Oak Lawn police, and are calling for the community to mobilize for the Fire & Police Commission meeting on September 2nd. Until the false charges are dropped, the community will also be mobilizing to support the three who have been arrested, starting at their court hearing on September 17th in Bridgeview, Illinois.

#OakLawnIL #IL #Chicago #InjusticeSystem #CAARPR #AAAN #OLPD

Oak Lawn, IL – 50 people filled the chambers of the Oak Lawn Police and Fire Commission during its monthly meeting on Wednesday evening, August 5. They demanded the firing of officers involved in incidents of racism and an independent investigation by the attorney general into the police department. 

Commissioner Jim Baker began the meeting by telling members of the public to “maintain order and respect.” He asked community members not to disrupt, referring to protests which have happened at every commission meeting since July 2022.

“You talk about respect and order, but where was the respect and order when your officers beat an Arab teenager nearly to death?” Nadiah Alyafai, organizer with the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) stated in the public comments part of the meeting. She asked the commissioners about the beating of Hadi Abuatelah in 2022, which sparked monthly protests against the OLPDs racism.

“Where was the respect when you let a white woman get away with murdering Murod Kurdi?” Alyafai continued, referring to Leanne Cusack, who ran Murod Kurdi over after she had been drinking in 2023. Cusack's only consequence has been a $750 fine.

“Is that what the life of an Arab man is worth?” a 17-year-old AAAN member questioned the commissioners. 

Several AAAN youth members spoke on the racism of OLPD and how the commission refused to hold the police accountable. All of them called on Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul to investigate and clean out OLPD.

“It's not just Arabs. Black and brown people experience the corruption of the OLPD too,” one AAAN youth member said.

“Our community has always come in with peaceful intentions and we're treated like criminals,” another youth member said, pointing out the irony that Oak Lawn police have inflicted racist violence on people protesting their racist violence in past meetings.

Ten minutes later, Commission Chairman Jim Baker sicced the police on a 14-year-old Arab boy. 

“You forfeited your right to speak,” Baker said after the teenager called him a “fucking jackass” for his ongoing failure to pronounce Arab names.

Baker then motioned for police to remove the boy. Other community members, including the boy's mother, voiced their disapproval at this blatant violation of free speech. Police shoved the teenager, his mother, and other protesters out the meeting chambers and down the stairs. One officer held the boy in a chokehold and slammed him against a counter, and another twisted his mother's arm.

The 14-year-old sustained injuries to his neck, chest, arm and ankle and had to get treatment at a nearby hospital. 

Commissioners adjourned the meeting without hearing any further comments. Protesters banged on the outside windows while chanting “Justice for Murod Kurdi!” and “How do you spell racist? OLPD!”

“OLPD assaulted a minor, choked him, slammed him. His only crime was saying the f-word,” AAAN organizer Muhammad Sankari addressed protesters after the chants. “If we don't stand up, the injustice that happened to Hadi and Murod is gonna keep happening over and over again.”

“We need to show up stronger at the next meeting and even stronger at the one after that,” Sankari said, and encouraged protesters to bring friends to the next commission meeting on September 2.

AAAN organizers also urged people to sign and share the petition demanding Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul investigate OLPD: bit.ly/investigateOLPD.

#OakLawnIL #ChicagoIL #IL #OppressedNationalities #InjusticeSystem #AAAN #ArabAmerican #Police

Oak Lawn, IL – On Wednesday, March 30, the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) led a disruption of the Oak Lawn Fire & Police Commission meeting to demand justice for Murod Kurdi, a young Arab man struck and killed outside his home in June 2023 by white drunk driver Leanne Cusack.

Cusack was released by Oak Lawn Police Department (OLPD) officers without a breathalyzer or blood test despite telling officers that she was driving drunk, leaving only with a traffic ticket that she nevertheless contested in court. After three years of monthly protests by Kurdi’s family, AAAN and other organizations and community members, the Oak Lawn Fire & Police Commissioners still refuse to hold Cusack truly accountable for killing Kurdi, or the OLPD officers for neglecting their duty.

As with past meetings, OLPD officers surrounded meeting attendees, ready to contain and remove anyone challenging the commission. The commissioners did not mention Kurdi or acknowledge those present and began to move the unusually short meeting to a close – despite the entirety of the non-commissioner participants were there to call for justice and police accountability.

In response, several meeting attendees stood up to reveal their shirts, each with the name of a commissioner, and put on pig masks. The protesters called out the racist practices and history of Oak Lawn towards the Arab community and other oppressed nationality residents until OLPD officers removed them from the building. One of the protesters repeatedly mocked one of the commissioners, saying, “My name is Jim Baker and I am a racist! I don’t care about what happens to the Arab residents in Oak Lawn.”

Another incident of racist violence involved three OLPD officers ganging up on 17-year-old teenager Hadi Abuatelah in 2022, breaking several of his ribs and putting him in a coma for weeks. Only in 2025, after consistent mobilization to commission meetings, did the Abuatelah family finally secure a partial victory in their struggle in the form of a settlement from Oak Lawn.

The family’s demand to charge the three officers with aggravated battery and official misconduct was denied when Cook County Prosecutor Eileen Burke dropped the charges a single day into taking office, signaling her intention to operate in political alignment with Oak Lawn in tolerating or encouraging police crimes directed at its nationally oppressed residents.

Burke has since become more infamous for her refusal to criminally charge Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, especially after their brutal attacks on immigrants in the Chicagoland area, such as the vicious murder of beloved community member Silverio Villegas Gonzales, and revenge shooting of Marimar Martinez for speaking out against ICE.

After the meeting, AAAN organizer Rania Salem called on attendees to continue showing up at the Oak Lawn Fire & Police Commission meetings on the first Wednesday of every month at 9446 Raymond Avenue, Oak Lawn, 60453, with the next one on Wednesday, May 6 at 5 p.m.

Salem said, “We will keep coming, month after month, to every Fire & Police Commission meeting until we get the justice Murod’s beloved family and our community deserves. So next month, it’ll hopefully be warm out again, bring your family and your friends, and we will see you soon again!”

In addition to organizing monthly protests, AAAN is gathering organizational and individual signatures calling on Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul to launch an investigation into the racist practices of Oak Lawn. Please sign on to the letter and its demands here.

#OakLawnIL #IL #AAAN #MurodKurdi #OppressedNationalities #InjusticeSystem