Former Belleville man files complaint alleging East St. Louis police officer beat him
Nearly a month after Jaylen Lacey returned home to help his mom move from Belleville to Fairview Heights, what was supposed to be a fun afternoon turned into a traumatic experience that left Lacey, his mom and his friends gutted.
Lacey alleges an East St. Louis police officer severely beat him during a March 14 arrest.
“The whole situation has just been a nightmare,” Patricia Lacey, Jaylen’s mom, told the BND. “My son was bleeding like a slaughtered pig, because I went to the scene, and I was just trying to find out what was going on. They wouldn’t tell me. My son’s face, I couldn’t even tell who it was because of how bloody his face was and (how) his clothes looked. All of it is just a nightmare.”
On March 18, Jaylen Lacey filed an official complaint against the East St. Louis Police Department.
“I can barely see out of my left eye,” Lacey, 22, said in an interview with the BND. “I have a headache. My breathing has been way louder because they broke my nose. They almost fractured my jaw. I needed stitches in my left eyebrow. I needed stitches along my nose too.”
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/law-order/2022-03-24/former-belleville-man-files-complaint-alleging-east-st-louis-police-officer-beat-him