The attorney for Purdue University student Adonis Tuggle said he’d like to see criminal charges against his client dismissed after a video surfaced last week showing Tuggle being forcefully restrained by a Purdue police officer.
The video showed Officer Jon Selke lying on top of Tuggle and forcing his elbow into Tuggle’s face and throat. Tuggle’s girlfriend, who recorded the video, can be heard telling the officer to get his elbow “off my boyfriend’s neck.”
In a statement, university officials said Selke was responding to a reported assault on a woman.
Attorney Andrew M. Stroth is the managing director of Action Injury Law Group, a national civil rights law firm based out of Chicago. He said the video clearly depicts “egregious” police behavior.
“I think parents, especially parents of Black young men and women, are going to think twice about going to Purdue if that’s the university where police officers use excessive and unreasonable force,” he said.
Stroth said Tuggle’s family wants the police body camera footage released and a sit-down meeting with Purdue President Mitch Daniels.
“The family and I would like to sit down with the president and his legal counsel and talk about how do we move forward in a productive fashion so no other student, Black, white, Hispanic, experiences the police brutality that Adonis Tuggle experienced on Feb. 4,” he said.
Both Purdue and the Tippecanoe County prosecutor's office have asked for an independent investigation of the police encounter in addition to the internal review being performed by the university. Selke has also been placed on a leave of absence, which Purdue Police Chief John Cox attributed to death threats the officer and department have received.
In a letter sent to Daniels on Feb. 10, Tuggle’s mother, Cornelia Dawson, wrote that she was “very disturbed, disappointed and fearful for my son at Purdue University” and pleaded for Daniels “to protect me and my son, Adonis Tuggle, from racist acts and retaliation, which he is now experiencing because of this nightmare being brought to public attention."
Dawson also called for accountability for Selke and the “unsafe and uncomfortable educational experience” he had created for Tuggle and “other students who are now concerned and disturbed.”
Stroth also noted that hundreds of students showed up in support of Tuggle at a town hall held last week.
“You have a university that is less than three percent black and yet hundreds of students of all races showed up to support Adonis,” he said. “I think it’s an opportunity to show their commitment to racial equality and social justice. I think it’s a teachable moment for the university – we’ll see if they view it the same way.”
Last Friday, Purdue announced it would have no further comment on the matter “to ensure the integrity of the investigation.”
