The Chicagoist will be launching later but in the meantime please enjoy our archives.

Dorothy Tillman Arrested, Says Police Used Excessive Force

By Margaret Lyons in News on Mar 3, 2008 6:52PM

2008_3_3.dorothytillman.jpgFormer alderman Dorothy Tillman was arrested over the weekend in Alabama. She was charged with criminal tresspassing after refusing to leave an Montgomery hospital, according to the police. Tillman says the cops used excessive force and that she was brutalized.

Tillman, who was until last year the alderman of the 3rd ward, was in Montgomery for civil rights activist Johnnie Carr's funeral, and she decided to visit her elderly aunt who lives in the area. Tillman's aunt wasn't doing too well, so Tillman took her to the hospital but became concerned that she wasn't receiving decent care and wanted to transfer her. Tillman asked for her aunt's medical records, which is when stuff got ugly. Hospital staffers refused, Tillman refused to leave, and then security got involved. And then the Montgomery Police Department.

"They knocked me down to the ground," Tillman says. "They knocked my hat off. One of them put his knees on my spine and threatened to taser me." No one knocks off Tillman's hat! Montgomery Police deny any wrongdoing.

She spent under two hours in jail at which point a local minister posted her $300 bail. Her court date is March 31. [S-T, CBS 2, AP, Trib]