Thursday's Louisville Metro Police Department news dump on their arrest of PGA golfer Scottie Scheffler last week began with spokesperson Sgt. Matt Sanders giving a quick plan for "today's run of show." The mayor would talk. The police chief would talk. No questions would be taken at the lectern. All questions were to be emailed afterward to the public information office.) And at the end, several documents and videos would be released on LMPD's "forward-facing transparency page," aka a website. (Documents from the arresting officer's personnel file later would be published by WDRB journalist Jason Riley; more on that later.)
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Reforms were promised after the protests [in the wake of Breonna Taylor's shooting death at the hands of the LMPD], including increased use of police body cameras, which ended up being the crux of what was and wasn't said on Thursday. The officer who arrested Scheffler, Det. Bryan Gillis, had "failed to power on his body-worn camera," according to LMPD police records released Thursday. In response, Gillis was "counseled by a member of his command" and a "performance evaluation" was done, according to an LMPD memorandum. A little further explanation is given on the failure-to-record form, on which Gillis's supervisor wrote that the camera should have at least been in standby mode but "due to the confusion" in the area at the time, Gillis's "sense of urgency" responding to the traffic fatality, and "expediting traffic for the PGA Championship," the detective failed to turn it on. Both a lieutenant and a division commander reviewed this and signed off on it.
There was, then, no up-close video of what happened when Gillis arrested Scheffler.
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Into [the] different accounts [of what happened with Scheffler] came Thursday's press conference, followed by the released video. One is from a dash cam, the other is from a camera on a nearby pole. The clearest footage came from the camera on the pole, with what looks like Scheffler's vehicle showing up about 30 seconds in. It's the events happening in the upper left corner, near the white fence. Clips of this zoomed in were shared Thursday on social media, but below is the raw footage as LMPD released it.
https://youtu.be/mnWeQfNMLmM
Later that day, WDRB's Jason Riley shared snippets from Gillis's personnel file, including that Gillis once was suspended for five days for doing donuts while on duty in his police car, with a drunk civilian passenger.
He also has a secondary job as a collision investigator for lawyers and insurance companies.
He described his role as a "private investigator where I am not representing LMPD" pic.twitter.com/A70jn0Ms5z
— Jason Riley (@JasonRileyWDRB) May 23, 2024
A list of all of the times Det. Gillis has been punished by LMPD. (Not including Scheffler body cam violation) pic.twitter.com/Zd7r2C36j9
— Jason Riley (@JasonRileyWDRB) May 23, 2024
Gillis also has commendations in his file, including this one for issuing a "staggering 108 citations" during a four-hour period. Credited for his "strong work ethic, perseverance and positive attitude." pic.twitter.com/2iUHB85Iba
— Jason Riley (@JasonRileyWDRB) May 23, 2024
The day closed with Riley sharing a statement from prosecutors, saying they still had not decided if they would pursue a case against Scheffler.
