Louisville Police ruling on arrest protested - Officers Cleared of Charges

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]