An Illinois man has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that an off-duty police officer improperly restrained his 12-year-old daughter during a fight at a Wisconsin high school last year by kneeling on her neck.
Jerrel Perez filed the lawsuit Monday, alleging that officer Shawn Guetschow used excessive force and caused prolonged injury to his daughter. The lawsuit asks Guetschow, the city of Kenosha and his school district to pay unspecified compensation and attorneys’ fees.
The city attorney, the Kenosha Police Department and the police union have not commented. It was also not possible to contact Guetschow directly on several telephone numbers registered to him.
In his spare time, Guetschow worked as a guard at Lincoln High School in Kenosha and it was March 4 when Perez’s daughter got into a fight with another student in the cafeteria.
Surveillance video shows Guetschow running to separate the girls. He struggles with Perez’s daughter, who apparently throws a punch at him. He falls to the floor and takes her with him. He then gets on top of her and apparently puts his knee on the back of her neck for regarding 25 seconds while handcuffing her. He then picks her up and carries her away, leaving her out of the camera footage.
Perez’s daughter is black and Guetschow is white.