Citizen Report No. 1632869175 - 193921051

Police hit Ivoré Westfield with pepper balls and strike her with batons.

The four officers involved in the incident, whom the Police Department identified in August 2020, were placed on administrative duty during the investigation, but Kinsey and Simpson were returned to “full-duty status,” the department said on March 1, 2021. The department did not respond to a request for an update in May 2021. On Aug. 12, 2020, the Marion County prosecutor, Ryan Mears, announced that a grand jury had indicted Horlock and Schauwecker on multiple felony charges including battery and official misconduct. Horlock was also indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Both officers were scheduled for a jury trial on June 28, 2021, and no pleas had been entered as of June 3, 2021. On June 26, 2020, Westfield and the other woman in the video, Rachel Harding, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the four officers. According to the suit, Harding and Westfield were arrested for violating the curfew and were initially “passive and cooperative” when handcuffed, until an officer forced Westfield’s “arms upward behind her back into an unnatural position causing extreme pain.” When she pulled away, she was hit with pepper balls and then beaten with batons, causing swelling, bruising and welts, according to the suit. Harding was then pushed down after she tried to film the incident. In an answer to the suit, the officers said they had acted “reasonably under the circumstances” and that any injury to Harding and Westfield “resulted from their own actions.” Mears declined to file charges against the women, who were held at the county jail until June 2, 2020. The officers did not respond to requests for comment in August 2020. Only Kinsey had been previously disciplined by the department. He received a written reprimand and a one-day suspension in 2004, according to his personnel file. On Feb. 23, 2021, an independent review panel tasked by the mayor to look at the protests released a 44-page report with six recommendations for the Police Department. The report said the department “appears to have relied on tactics designed to control disorder rather than facilitate protected speech.”