Highland’s Town Council president did not have a man accused of trespassing on property the town recently purchased arrested, according to police body cam footage.

The Post-Tribune on Friday viewed via an Access to Public Records Act request body cam footage from the two officers who arrested Ghassan Odtallah last month. Odtallah, of Munster, and his brother, Wajdy Odtallah, of Hammond, filed in November a tort claim against the town for preventing them from opening a fireworks business; an amended tort claim filed Jan. 15 added “unlawful arrest” to the claim.

In the first video timestamped at 1:40 p.m. January 10, Highland Police Officer John Freyek is seen walking into a building at 7950 Kennedy Ave. Freyek tells a man, later identified as Ghassan Odtallah, that dispatch received a call of men going into the building and asks if they’re coming to clean it out, according to the footage.

Odtallah tells him he and the two other men with him were there organizing stuff they had stored there, to which Freyek tells him that the building belongs to the town. Odtallah tells Freyek he leases the building and that the town didn’t buy it, and that the whole matter is going to court, the footage shows.

Freyek then asks for Odtallah’s ID and tells the second officer on the scene, Officer Addison Barnhill, that he’s going to call Highland Police Chief Ralph Potesta for guidance as they walk away from Odtallah. As he calls Potesta, Code Enforcer Brian Orth arrives and tells Freyek and Barnhill that Building Inspector Ken Mika confirmed with him that the building is going to be the town’s new animal shelter, the footage shows.

Orth leaves, and Potesta can be heard on the video telling Freyek that he would send George Georgeff, R-1, who’s currently serving as Town Council president and redevelopment chair, to the scene. Freyek asks Potesta whether Georgeff has the paperwork showing the town purchased the property; Potesta said he didn’t know but that Freyek should “see what George wants to do” and remind Georgeff to get the locks on the building changed if he didn’t have a key.

Odtallah, who said he was going to call his attorney, then walks up to the officers and asks for his ID, and as Freyek tells him once again that as far as he knew, the town bought the building, to which Odtallah asked for documentation of the sale and reiterated that he has a lease on the building, but said he “didn’t want to talk to nobody.” At this point, Georgeff arrives on the scene and tells the officers that the town closed on the building two weeks prior and that he has the key to the place, the footage shows.

Georgeff then tells Freyek and Barnhill to give Odtallah a trespassing warning, but if he shows up again, he would be arrested, according to the footage.

Freyek again tells Odtallah that he needs to vacate the premises; Odtallah turns to Georgeff and asks him if he’s a lawyer for the “city,” telling them he has the keys to the building, the footage shows. Georgeff went to use the key he had to open the building door, but it didn’t work.

One of the two men Odtallah brought with him to the building then attempts to calm him down, but Odtallah remained defiant. Freyek tells Odtallah if he “doesn’t get the (expletive) off the property, he’s going to arrest” him, to which Odtallah says, “Take me.” Freyek and Barnhill then arrest Odtallah, who appears to struggle as they cuff him, according to the footage.

A man identifying himself as Odtallah’s son arrives as Odtallah was arrested and tells Georgeff and the officers that he doesn’t understand how they wouldn’t have access to the building on which they’re paying a lease. Georgeff says that they hadn’t paid anything to the town of Highland, and Freyek adds that the situation is now a civil matter between Odtallah and Donald Webber, who sold the building to the town and from whom the Odtallahs leased the property in the first place.

Barnhill’s camera footage confirms Freyek’s footage.

A tort claim dated January 15 that the Post-Tribune obtained says that Wajdy Odtallah and his brother, Ghassan Odtallah, leased in May 7950 Kennedy Ave., on the town’s north side. The men, who own several Northwest Indiana businesses as Rock the Sky LLC, planned to open a fireworks store there because one had been there in the past, the Post-Tribune previously reported. Wajdy Odtallah had applied for and received state permitting as well as purchased inventory for the store, the claim said.

The town, however, indicated to the men that it was interested in purchasing the building for its own use and therefore would neither grant the Odtallahs a business license nor let them hook up utilities, it said. To mitigate what they believe to have been $700,000 in losses, the Odtallahs then told the town they would then open a smoke/smoke accessories shop, for which the building was zoned correctly, the claim said. The Town still wouldn’t allow them to either get their business permit or run utilities to the building.

“Even if the (town) had serious intent to purchase the Property, it is not an acceptable justification to deny permits where all permitting conditions are met or to deny utility services to a valid leaseholder. Odtallah had and has a valid lease on the Property, which is zoned for the business he intends to conduct. Whether the City has ethereal plans for the Property does not alter the rights and protections to which Odtallah is entitled,” the claim said.

The Odtallahs, through Crown Point-based law firm Robbins & Seville, issued a tort claim in November, at which point they discovered the Town had purchased the building, attorney Scott Seville told the Post-Tribune previously. Nobody told the Odtallahs.

“Normally, a building owner has two choices: They can honor a leasing agreement, or they can file an eviction with the court,” Seville said. “No eviction was ever filed, so my clients have been trying to pay their rent to the town, and they won’t accept that, either.”

Ghassan Odtallah was taken to Lake County Jail, Seville said. The trespassing charge, however, has still not shown up in court records yet.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.