A 19 year old man named Terry has filed a lawsuit against two fired Louisville Metro Corrections officers after body camera footage of an April jail incident was released to the public, according to Wave 3 News.
Wave 3 reports the incident happened on April 15 during a routine security check, when officers asked Terry about the toilet paper covering his cell window. In the footage, the officer wearing the camera can be heard asking what he was doing, and Terry can be heard explaining that he was trying to use the bathroom. Wave 3 reports that officer David Schwartz then struck him in the head while he was handcuffed and slammed the cell door against the wall.
Corrections officials fired Schwartz, 47, who was a probationary officer at the time, along with a second officer, Devan Edwards, 21, for failing to report the incident. Both were let go nine days after it happened, once officials reviewed the footage.
According to court documents obtained by the Courier Journal, Terry claims he was pepper sprayed, handcuffed and beaten. The suit says Edwards had earlier given him permission to cover the opening in his cell for privacy, and that Schwartz ordered the paper taken down while Terry was still using the restroom. The filing describes the moment as a verbal argument and what it calls a minor scuffle, after which Terry says he was beaten, moved to another location and beaten again, leaving him with contusions and swelling. He also says he blacked out and was taken to a hospital a week later. These are allegations in a lawsuit and have not been proven in court.
The head of the corrections department said of the video, “What I saw on that video is disturbing and is not reflective of what we expect from our staff.” The incident was under investigation. Responses from Schwartz and Edwards to the lawsuit were not included in the reports Baller Alert reviewed.
