Louisville Police ruling on arrest protested - Officers Cleared of Charges
Thursday, January 6, 2005 at 06:55PM
TheSpook
Handcuffed Black Man, Marshall Galloway Pepper Sprayed & Put in Lengthy Chokehold
Civil-rights activists gathered outside Louisville Metro Police
headquarters yesterday to call for a civilian review board in the wake
of an internal investigation that cleared an officer accused of
excessive force. The Rev. Louis Coleman contended that a videotape of
the Nov. 30, 2003, arrest of Marshall Galloway clearly showed Officer
Harry Cambron using excessive force when he repeatedly pepper-sprayed
Galloway and held him in a lengthy chokehold after he was handcuffed.
The decision to exonerate Cambron of using excessive force but
reprimand him for cursing Galloway was another example of a police
department incapable of monitoring itself, Coleman and a half-dozen
other activists told reporters. "I don't understand how, with the
videotape to go on, this came down the way it did," said Tom Moffett, a
member of the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political
Repression. "It blows my mind that we accept this as a community and a
nation. We have to get over this idea that the police can police
themselves." On Wednesday, Police Chief Robert White said that Cambron
could have handled the arrest better but that the officer had to use
force because Galloway was resisting. Cambron was ordered to undergo
counseling and additional training on arrest techniques. That did not
satisfy civil-rights activists, who said more training is always the
answer from police. "How much training does a police office need to
know how to treat another human being?" the Rev. Milton Seymore asked. [more]
