Columbus police sued by ACLU of Ohio
Columbus police are facing a federal civil rights lawsuit filed on behalf of a 35-year-old man who was arrested after recording SWAT team members on his cellphone while standing on his front porch.
Sgt. James Morrow, Sgt. Joseph Podolski and officers Kenneth Dale and Glenn Thivener are accused of roughing up and arresting Nicholas Pettit, according to an 11-page complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
The complaint alleges that around 8 p.m. on April 24, 2019, SWAT officers were serving a search warrant at a neighboring home on the Hilltop. More SWAT officers and police were down the street.
SWAT was evacuating and questioning a family who were neighbors of Pettit and officers were smacking a compliant teenager across the face, which led Pettit to start video recording the encounter with his cellphone, according to the complaint.
Pettit states he told officers to stop. Morrow, Dale and Thivener proceeded to come over to Pettit’s yard and yell at him, telling him to get back in the house and stop recording, the complaint states.
Officers then approached Pettit, slammed him down, threatened him, roughed him up and arrested him on a charge of misconduct at an emergency, the complaint states. His phone also was confiscated.
Pettit said that as officers approached him and took him down he told them: “I didn’t even do nothing except record this whole situation,” according to the lawsuit.
Pettit was jailed five days before he was charged, the complaint states. The city attorney’s office ultimately dropped the charge against Pettit, citing insufficient evidence, according to the ACLU.
“Mr. Pettit had a right to not just observe, but also to record and criticize police mistreatment of his neighbors. This all occurred in a public space. When they suppressed his speech, the Columbus Police effectively said to him and his community, ‘We have impunity; we may abuse you without consequences.’ Nick is standing up to correct that,” Elizabeth Bonham, staff attorney for the ACLU of Ohio, said in a prepared release.
Columbus police said its policy is to decline comment on matters of pending
litigation.
The lawsuit is the latest against the city’s police division, including a federal lawsuit filed by a total of 26 people against the city over alleged civil rights violations by police during protests last summer.
Columbus police officer Karl Shaw, who is Black, received a $475,000 settlement last year in a racial discrimination case filed in federal court. The settlement included an agreement by the city to a significant policy change that any proven discriminatory action by a member of the city Division of Police will now be considered critical misconduct and a firing offense.
Pettit’s lawsuit also comes as the city on Wednesday will hold the first of six town hall meetings Wednesday to receive public input on reimagining public safety. The first session, which begins at 5:30 p.m., will discuss “Establishing Alternative Public Safety Crisis Response” and will be led by Council President Shannon G. Hardin. The city is also in the process of forming a civilian review board to investigate police use of force and misconduct.
Bonham said “the retaliation and the needless pretrial detention initiated a cascade of traumas in (Pettit’s) life, including the loss of a job opportunity” at Big Lots.
“It was not until one year after his arrest that he was able to recover enough to secure employment again, this time with Taco Bell,” according to the lawsuit. “The attack, arrest and seizure of his belongings had other fallout. He was physically injured. His spouse’s bank card was seized, which contained his family’s rent money for that month.”
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages. bburger@dispatch.com @Bybethburger