Photo courtesy of The Courier Journal.
Anthony Freeman is suing the LaRue County Sheriff’s Office after being dragged from his car and beaten on July 31 in LaRue County, Ky. Freeman suffered from a broken collarbone and PTSD as a result.
Freeman told WAVE News that he was driving from Elizabethtown to Munfordville in a borrowed car when he was pulled over on Route 31 West.
The 38-year-old said he was pulled over by Sheriff Russell McCoy and two others who identified themselves as police detectives. McCoy reportedly said he was pulled over for illegal headlights and requested Freeman’s identification.
“He handed me my I.D. and said ‘I’m good with you, but I don’t know what they want to do with you,’” recalled Freeman.
He said the officers then searched his car without warning or permission. Freeman said he called a lawyer as the men violently dragged him from the vehicle, breaking his collarbone. He said
only when the Kentucky police officers heard another voice on the line did they let him go.“They would have killed me. They really wanted to kill me that night. If my guy didn’t answer their phone. They would have killed me that night, I really believe that…I’m not the only person they’ve done this to,” Freeman said. “Just other people are not coming forward. I just feel like justice and change need to come forward in this.”
Freeman said the police officers also circled his car a dozen times with a police dog before searching the vehicle. Freeman credited the phone call for saving his life.
“If they hadn’t heard the voice on the phone, they would have killed me that night.”
His lawyer, Terry Gordon, filed the lawsuit on Feb. 9 at the U.S. District Court of Western Kentucky on his client’s behalf.
The LaRue County Sheriff’s Office has declined to comment or to release bodycam footage of the incident.