Kentucky Football Players Sue Lexington Police Over 2021 Arrests

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — 5 of six Kentucky soccer gamers cleared by a grand jury final 12 months on housebreaking prices have sued a Lexington police officer who directed the investigation of a March 2021 incident at an off-campus non-public social gathering.

Reuben Adams, Jutahn McClain, Vito Tisdale, Joel Williams and Andru Phillips allege in lawsuits that officer Cory Vinlove knew possible trigger didn’t exist to cost them and “launched into a journey” to border them for a criminal offense they didn’t commit. The fits filed in U.S. District Courtroom additionally identify officer Donnell Gordon, Police Chief Lawrence Weathers and the Lexington-Fayette County City Authorities as defendants.

Solely Tisdale, who’s injured, McClain and Phillips stay with the No. 8 Wildcats.

Lawyer Elliot Slosar of Chicago-based civil rights agency Loevy & Loevy mentioned in an announcement that the lawsuit is “one other tragic instance of the harm attributable to corrupt policing in America.”

“Because the lawsuits display, these 5 younger Black males have been focused by a white officer with an axe to grind and decided to make a reputation for himself,” added Slosar, one in all 4 attorneys listed on the gamers’ complaints.

The gamers, together with Earnest Sanders IV, have been charged in August 2021 with first-degree housebreaking. Tisdale additionally confronted a cost of first-degree wanton endangerment for allegedly pointing a gun at one of many victims.

A grand jury in Fayette County declined to indict on all prices final September and the gamers returned after being suspended from workforce actions whereas their circumstances have been pending.

The gamers search unspecified compensatory and punitive damages together with attorneys’ charges. A message left Wednesday night time with Lexington police was not instantly returned.

The lawsuits state that Vinlove sought “to additional his personal profession” and manufactured false prices earlier than Southeastern Convention media day to maximise embarrassment to the College of Kentucky and its gamers.

“Make no mistake, defendants’ pursuit of (particular person gamers) and others was by no means a couple of seek for the reality,” the lawsuits state, including that proof was “false, flimsy and fabricated.”

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