Louisville police taking second look at cop camera plan

Your version of the story contradicts the version below quoting Robison. Was Robison wrong?

Settle, 50, in sweat pants and filthy from doing remodeling work, had stopped to chat with someone he knew at a wine tasting in the mall's atrium when spotted by Officer Daniel English, who thought he was acting strangely, according to Robison.

Settle, who had recently moved to a home outside Elizabethtown, couldn't remember his address when English asked.

"He approached him and it went downhill from there," Robison said, saying the officer reported that Settle seemed confused and upset that he was being stopped.

Settle said he told the officer he had been evacuated from Afghanistan with brain trauma and memory issues, and the officer told him he needed to leave the mall.

"I asked him, 'Have I done something wrong?' and he said 'There is no panhandling here,' " Settle said, adding that he denied he was a vagrant and asked to speak with a supervisor.

When the officer asked for identification, Settle said he reached for his wallet, which he kept in his front pocket because he was wearing a cast on one arm, and "the next thing I know he's grabbing the back of my arm and telling me to get my hand out of my pocket and up in the air where he can see it."

"When I look around he had his Taser right in my face," Settle said, claiming he again asked to speak with a police supervisor and told the officer he could verify that he was a soldier in the wounded warrior program. Robison confirmed the officer twice pulled his Taser but did not use it.

After he was escorted outside, Settle said he placed his military ID on the ground, as the officer had a Taser pointed at him, and was approached by several other officers, and told them he was a soldier with a brain injury.

"I could see where this was going and I did not want to get thrown on the ground or pushed against a police car," he said. "And they are saying 'Shut up and do what you're told.' "

Settle said he saw one officer give a signal and they "took me down hard," putting him face down on the ground and with his hands handcuffed behind his back for about 15 minutes.

Settle said he was told he was going to jail, but nobody would tell him why.

"They said, 'Don't worry about it,' " Settle said. "I said what have I done wrong? And I couldn't get an answer."

But eventually, after calling officials at Fort Knox, Settle said, officers came back to him, referred to him as "colonel" and thanked him for his contribution to the country.

"I said this has nothing to do with me being a colonel. I am a soldier but most importantly I'm a citizen and a resident."

Settle said he was told to leave the mall and get his gift card somewhere else on the way out of Louisville.

Robison said while officers cannot restrict a citizen from property without the owner's request, it is common on "trouble runs" in which there is a conflict to remove the person from the area.

That theory has been debunked. The SPI instructors will have to google some new material for the next class.

http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/060330/brokenwindow.shtml