- The Louisville police sergeant ignored officers’ illegal use of the neck restraint policy, the Justice Department alleges.
- The sergeant only said of the incident that one of the officers “broke a fingernail,” the Justice Department alleges.
- The Justice Department released the results of its investigation into the department on Wednesday.
A Louisville, Kentucky, police officer violated the department’s neck restraint policy by kneeling on a man’s neck for nearly two minutes, but a sergeant who reviewed the incident said only that an officer on the scene “broke a wrist.” a”. the Justice Department alleges in a new report.
The DOJ on Wednesday released the results of its investigation into the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department, which was launched in response to the police killing of Breonna Taylor. The scathing 90-page report alleges numerous incidents of police abuse within the department that “violate the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
Those DOJ alleged that the abuses include the unlawful use of “dangerous neck restraints against non-threatening individuals.”
The report describes an incident in which LMPD officers “responded to a call about an elderly black man ‘dancing in the street.'”
The Justice Department alleges that the officers immediately dragged the man to the ground “by the neck” and sat on the man’s head and neck while attempting to handcuff him and ignored the man’s repeated questions about what he had done wrong.
“After 30 seconds, the first officer got out, turned the man onto his side, and pressed his knee against the man’s head and neck for nearly two minutes,” the Justice Department report said. “Witnesses implored the officer to remove the ‘knee from that man’s head, he’s a human being!’ The officer eventually removed his knee after more officers arrived, but then grabbed the man’s neck and shoved his head into the pavement.”
A sergeant who later reviewed the incident said “nothing about the many times officers violated the LMPD’s neck restraint policy,” according to the Justice Department report.
Instead, according to the Justice Department report, the sergeant only mentioned that one of the officers on the scene “broke a fingernail” in the encounter.
“The man posed no threat, and the multiple neck restraints officers used here violated the man’s constitutional rights,” the Justice Department report said.
