... are Louisville, Kentucky police officers Trey McKinley, Donald Pugh, Jeremy Linton, Daniel English and Joseph Vidourek, as well as Sgt. Kirby Shobe.
These fine public servants, especially "Officer" English, rousted National Guard Lt. Col. Donald Blake Settle, a highly decorated 29-year soldier with a traumatic brain injury, last January simply because he was wearing dirty clothes from a remodeling job and was observed by English to be having difficulty speaking while Settle was conversing with an acquaintance he ran into at a local mall while shopping for a gift card.
Despite his (accurate) protestations that he was neither impaired nor a homeless vagrant, Settle was menaced twice with a TASER, brutally tossed to the ground and handcuffed, and then threatened with arrest (for what? The story doesn't say, and there definitely was no actual crime being committed) before the cops made some calls and finally managed to figure out that he was telling the truth. Did that information make one bit of difference?
Naw, they still rudely told him to hit the road:
"Settle said he was told to leave the mall and get his gift card somewhere else on the way out of Louisville."
Didn't they already make a movie about exactly this kind of official abuse of innocent veterans by such smug self-proclaimed guardians of proper dress and diction?
Naturally, none of the cops were disciplined for their wrongdoing, not even "Sergeant" Shobe, who despite apparently being the supervisor at the scene didn't bother to fill out a report on the incident, most likely because enough clock ticks had passed for even that half-wit to figure out that he and his fellow thugs might actually face some consequences for their unlawful actions.
"'You always err on the side of caution because what, to me, this looks like, is that we were trying to cover something up,' [Louisville PD Col. Vince] Robison said, later clarifying, however, that it didn’t appear there was any “conspiracy” to cover anything up, just a “poor job” in not documenting what happened."
Oh no, no conspiracy at all, it was just a (very convenient) crappy job by his officers. But no punishment for said crap performance. What a professionally-run department.
Settle has been told he will have to sue the department to receive a copy of the sham "investigation" into incident. According to the story, he plans to do exactly that. We hope he gets some significant monetary damages as well to assist him in his recovery.
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2 comments:
I know the Officers involved. Two of which were combat veterans themselves. The man was never accused of being homeless or told to leave for panhandling. The Officer saw the man hovering around the cash table to the event and decided to ask him what he was in the Mall to do. Immediately the Lt. Col started shouting at the Officer causing a scene. It was not until he was secured that he started telling Officers he had a TBI. The Officers made the right call by letting a brain injured war hero go after clearly causing a disturbance inside the mall. But the truth is not nearly as interesting as this story by the writer. The Entire incident is on video and audio, which unfortunately for the Lt. Col, might not make him look very good once it goes to court. The Officers are also in contact with a defamation attorney to see what their options are. The Courier Journal will soon be forced to print a retraction to this story.
Let us see the video Ignorant '?sp' I mean Anonymous! Thank goodness for spellchecker. I almost or did call you IGNORANT.
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